


Caged

by Anonymous



Category: Charmed (TV 2018)
Genre: BDSM, Body Horror, Chastity Device, Cock Cages, Emotional Edging, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Happy Ending, Harry Greenwood Whumping, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Pining, Sexual Assault, Sexual Violence, Whump, and not just in a questionable strip mall establishment kind of way, anti-Abigael Jameson-Caine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:02:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23455213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Some asshole kidnaps Harry in the hopes that she can blackmail him into her vagina.  But Harry escapes never once having even twitched in said asshole's thin-lipped mouth...  And now, mortified as he is, Harry has to enlist Macy's help to undo a curse laid on him before he left.  Naughty shenanigans and a fair amount of mutual pining ensue.Yo, this is like,for realEXPLICIT.  If you know this isn't for you, i.e. not your bag or you're not old enough, then pleasedo not read it.  Curate your internet experience as fits your needs.  You have been warned.
Relationships: Harry Greenwood/Macy Vaughn
Comments: 136
Kudos: 171
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

Certainly, there are parts of demon Overlord’s obsessions Harry has come to understand. Not understand as in condone but rather in the sense that some of her motivations have finally been made clear to him. The need to feel and be lauded as superior to those she felt had wronged her or were given what she felt she better deserved drove Abigael to undermine and plot against people like her own brother and the Charmed ones.

But what Harry cannot seem to make sense of is Abigael’s incessant and often distasteful attempts to lure him into her bed, regardless of how many times she is rebuffed. Is he yet another a means to further harm the powerful, kind-hearted women she considers beneath her somehow? Is it something just as simple as resentment at being denied and taking by force whatever she feels she is entitled to, regardless of consent? Or has she some plot in mind that somehow must include him in servicing her?

Regardless of her motivations, as some of the grogginess induced by the laced tea she had served him, it seems the despicable wretch of a woman has sped well past distasteful and straight to deplorable.

She means to have him ‘service’ her appetites _tonight_ , regardless of his consent. And apparently, in addition to holding his darklighter as hostage to secure his compliance, if he’s correct about the faint aftertaste coating his tongue the tea he’s so foolishly accepted from her was laced with some sort of ‘love potion’.

But even after forcing several more doses of her concoction on him, making escalating threats against his darklighter and himself, and even a ham-fisted attempt to break into his mind the self-proclaimed femme fatale fails to elicit even the faintest twitch from his utterly disinterested flesh. Whatever trace of attraction and/or madness that had driven him to kiss her the one time has long since vanished leaving nothing but revulsion for the peevish creature having a sulk at the far end of the bed.

-

It doesn’t take long before peevishness morphs into naked outrage as her wheedling and threats and displays of nudity continue to fail in arousing him. She hurls abuses at him and his charges, cursing them with escalating vulgarity.

With her powers she calls up a box from a nearby table and it falls artlessly onto the bed between them. She upends the container and curiously molded pieces of bright blue and transparent, hardened plastic tumble out. Harry, being neither a fool nor an innocent, can guess as to the purpose of the device the pieces must form and where on his person she means to place it.

Abigael doesn't bother to fasten the plastic cage around him, herself. Instead, the pieces shudder and shamble in Harry’s direction as the hodgepodge curse that had been cast on them activates under Abigael’s petulant glare. Even in his near-paralysis the pain as the pieces pinch and rub mercilessly against his tender parts causes Harry to arch and struggle to twist away in an attempt to escape.

"I don't give up, Harry. And I am owed. No one gets to touch you or fuck you before I get to, least of all _her_ ,” she snarls at him. “Not that she would, would she, Harry? We both know that _girl_ doesn't want you that way. No one wants you like I do, Harry. Once you realize that you can come back to me and we can take this off and then,” her voice drops to a saccharine coo, “I’ll show you what a proper woman with actual magic can do for you. You’re going to wonder why you ever thought to resist.”

The way the woman swings from sneering rage to snobbery to cloying coquettishness leaves his head spinning. She was mad. Utterly and unequivocally mental.

Once all his bits are ‘secured’ in the accursed device Harry sees a smirk twist her thin lips. She flicks her hand and his clothes come flying at him, striking him in the face and chest. At the sound of fingers clicking he feels the paralysis weighing him down to the bed dissipate and he scrambles to free himself from the tangle of sheets around his legs. Once on his feet, Harry turns away from her and quickly pulls his shirt and trousers, only pausing for a brief second upon realizing she’d purposely withheld his underpants.

“Let’s see which of those little, what are they called, _brujas_ even bothers trying to get that off of you. They can’t, by the way.”

She saunters away from the bed with an exaggerated swing of her hips, the hem of her short robe undisturbed by the presence of any sort of curves or hint of musculature.

“But me, I’ll be right here waiting for you, Harry,” she tosses over her shoulder in what Harry assumes is meant to be a seductive tone.

Harry understands he’s being allowed to leave but in her arrogance Abigael fails to keep her hands on Jimmy's bottle. Harry takes quiet steps that bring him to Abigael’s side. She turns and he sees her expression turn smug and hungry. Harry suppresses a shudder and the need to gag. His hand reaches out and in the blink of an eye and the flash of his orb Harry makes his escape. The last thing he sees before he disappears is fury twisting Abigael’s face as she finally marks the bottle in Harry’s hand.

-∵-

The very instant he materializes in the foyer Harry is greeted by thunder of feet racing down towards him from the kitchen and down the stairs. With barely any warning Harry is nearly bowled over as all three Charmed Ones sweep him into the their embrace.

They pepper him with questions, questions Harry finds himself giving, at best, half-answers to some and outright evading others. He tells them the who (Abigael) and the how (a spell she’d hidden away the last time she’d been in the house), most of which they’d already surmised.

His obfuscations regarding his dealings with his captor after he’d been taken, seemingly unnoticed by the younger Charmed Ones, earn him worried looks from the eldest. He turns his eyes away, even knowing how futile it is, has _always_ been to try and hide such things from Macy’s ever perceptive gaze. He half-forces out a laugh as they insist on looking him over for injuries and goes willingly as they pull him into hug after relieved hug. 

Harry lets himself be tugged into the kitchen and fed from the mountains of pastries, cakes and savory bites covering the countertops. _Stress baking, stress cooking_ , Mel mutters under her breath, catching Harry’s eye before glancing pointedly at her sisters. He’d scarcely been gone half a day! But still, as he indulges in treat after treat and basks in the steady warmth of his family’s affections the awfulness of his ordeal begins ever so incrementally to recede.

-

A scant hour later, Harry finds himself with Macy walking further into corridors of the Command Center than he’s ever been as they look for a more secure place to house the darklighter’s bottle. She guides him past rooms filled with even more books than he could have imagined and even a few rooms that look very much like the kind of quarters found in convents and monasteries. Eventually, they find a spot not too far from the Guardian’s sacred grove, a little alcove carved into a stone wall where the bottle can be hidden amongst other curious looking but seemingly worthless vessels.

It’s when the bottle is finally tucked away and hidden by both detritus and various wards placed by both witch and whitelighter that Harry feels Macy very serious and expectant gaze fall upon him. But standing here with Macy in these quiet depths, centuries old magic warming the air around them, the shame and rage that had been clawing at his insides subsides even further. 

And just as they had when Hilltowne had been their home, the words tumble quietly out of Harry. Only now, instead of sitting on their favorite bench in front of a picturesque window they stand side by side surrounded by ancient stone and even older magic. Macy’s hand slips comfortingly into his and he tells her of being drugged and waking up naked and paralyzed.

A tug on his hand pulls Harry’s mind away from his painfully fresh memories and his gaze back to the witch at his side. She pulls him into her embrace and he goes more than willingly, wrapping his arms tightly around her. Harry concentrates on the feel of her warmth and strong arms around him, brushes his face against her unbound curls and tries his best to anchor himself to the present.

Holding Macy in this place with the facts of his ordeal out in the open, Harry finds himself shaking as finally, finally the adrenaline and Abigael's poisoned tea have started to wear off. Macy pulls back momentarily as she feels the tremors shake him. Her mouth opens to question him but he shakes his head and once again pulls her close, needing to feel her arms around him, needing to feel a moment’s peace, needing to forget, if only for just a moment.

-

"Harry?" she asks as she once again pulls away from him. The look of shock on her face is like ice cold water dashing onto him and he knows without a doubt what has her looking at him so. He'd been pressed so tightly to her in his need to banish his darker thoughts that there's no possible way she could have not felt the contraption Abigael forced on him. Oh god, what must she be thinking? He thinks perhaps he knows but that it's so much worse ties his tongue in knots.

When he finds his voice he can feel the old defenses rising and he rolls his eyes before speaking.

“Oh, good heavens, Macy. I’m not some randy teenager. It’s not an erec-”

She cuts him off with a glare.

“Yeah, Harry, I know what one feels like pressed up on me. Just like I know that’s definitely _not_ what I felt. So, Harry, what _is_ it?”

Under her perceptive and concerned gaze Harry’s bravado leaves him but the urge to tell her does not. Though the words do not come easily.

"A-Abigael- She..."

Macy's face sours at the name, her eyes narrowing and her mouth twisting as her ire grows. Harry curses that blasted 'overlord'. Every time he and Macy find themselves growing closer, closing the gaps formed by his spiteful idiocy and her insecurities, that wretched creature finds a way to obtrude on their fragile and still healing friendship.

"What else did she do to you, Harry?"

 _Don’t you mean 'What else did I **let** her do to me, this time?'_ he thinks sourly as the knot that had been growing steadily in his gut tightens painfully.

"No, that is _not_ what I mean. I'm serious, Harry. I need you to tell me. Look at me," she commands. And when his eyes slide shut and he turns away she adds a softer, “Please?” Her palm cups his cheek as she turns his head back to face her. " _What. Else. Did. She. Do?_ "

Harry swallows. The look on Macy's face is so fierce he half expects to see her eyes go dark as thin, black lines branch across her face. Even so Harry feels anything but afraid. In fact, the feeling that floods him as she locks her gaze with him is one of finally, _finally_ reaching a safe harbor and having someone to fight by his side. He feels utterly secure in the presence of this woman that it is _his_ duty to protect. It loosens his tongue and he can finally speak to the last and worst of the horrors of his night with the demons' loathsome leader. 

But first, he tells Macy, they must find some place more private. With a flurry texts the two alert the younger Charmed Ones of their departure. They wait in pensive silence for a few minutes and at the sound of the door above opening Harry orbs Macy and himself home.


	2. Chapter 2

Macy had known Harry was holding back when he’d first told her and her sisters about his encounter with Abigael but this… this is so much worse than anything she could have imagined. Even without her fiery powers she can feel her demonic side rise with rage, can feel the darkness creep out across her face and her eyes darkening.

Face flushed red in the soft candle light of the attic, Harry explains to her what exactly it was that she’d felt. He doesn’t show it to her and unless Harry offers there’s definitely no way she’s going to ask to see it. And as he speaks Macy finds herself having squash down again and again the urge to pull him back to her as he retreats into academic tones, describing the device and the discomfort, the _pain_ it causes him with a worryingly cold dispassion. 

It’s a device meant, as Harry puts it, for more the adventurous type sexual play. The restrictive shape and size of the device, called a chastity cage or a cock cage, would in theory, prevent the wearer, in this case Harry, from engaging in sexual activity be it intercourse or masturbation or from receiving oral sex. And in fact would most likely restrict him in such a way that he would be unable to even form an erection. The fact that the device bore no lock or latch or even any seams brought him to the conclusion that only magic, specifically Abigael’s magic could release him. 

“Oh, Harry,” she starts, tears gathering in her throat. But he shakes his head and straightens his spine. He continues his impromptu ‘lecture’ even as his hand reaches out to twine with hers.

Frustration, it seems is that beastly woman’s goal. She means to put him in a position where presumably, unmitigated sexual frustration would drive him to submit to her… _demands_.

“But perhaps,” he pauses and Macy’s heart stutters as a Harry’s eyes take on a bright, manic sheen. It’s the same reckless look that had lit his face the first time she had ever mentioned the terribly risky idea of merging him with his darklighter. Macy grips his hand, hoping to bring him back from whatever rash idea her formerly coolheaded whitelighter’s mind is racing towards.

“Harry… What are you thinking?”

_

Harry looks at his eldest charge and notes the worry creasing her brow. _His charge_ , he snorts to himself. As if of late it wasn’t more Macy and her sisters coming to _his_ defense and _his_ aid than the other way around. And if he's being truly honest, since long before they had even left Hilltowne. But regardless of who was whose charge these days, right now it’s Macy he sees standing before him, lips turning down in a concerned frown. 

No, this was too much to ask of her. And perhaps in hindsight, the entire tale was one he ought not to have burdened her with. But still, with the only other option being to go back to Abigael… 

Harry clears his throat and pushes past the humiliation.

“I was perhaps thinking, and I would, of course, absolutely understand if such a request were to make you too uncomfortable, this being a uniquely disturbing situation, and that is in light of the great many other disturbing situations which, sadly has continued to be the theme of our lives, even under normal circumstances. Or what passes for normal for us, in any ca-“

“Harry?”

“Yes, Macy?”

“Spit it out.”

-

It doesn’t sound like a good plan. It really, _really_ doesn’t. In fact it sounds like a _terrible_ plan. But the naked desperation on Harry’s face and the way her hand is now clutched between both of his…

“If it’s cursed, Harry, do you really think getting it off is going to be as easy as me just breaking it off? This is Abigael we’re talking about. And that bitch –no, don’t give me that look, _Professor_. I’ll call that kidnapping, piece of shit perv a bitch if I want to- and that _fucking_ bitch hates me. I really doubt she’d be sloppy or dumb enough to leave an opening for _me_ , of all people, to use my powers to free you."

“But the alternative…”

“Is just one. One that we are never going to let happen. So there have to be others. We just have to think things through, explore _all_ our options and find the one that works. Because, Harry, she is never getting her hands on you again. And that thing is coming off of you, even if Maggie, Mel and I have to use the Power of Thr-”

“NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT.”

The forcefulness of his interjection makes her heart jump. Macy tries to meet his eyes but Harry has them shut and his head tilted back as he gathers himself. She can practically see him reeling in the edges of his temper as muscles tic at his jaw and around his eyes. After a moment and several deep breaths, Harry continues in a strained but somewhat calmer voice.

“Please, if only for the sake of what’s left of my dignity, Macy, I am begging you that we keep my- this- _situation_ strictly between the two of us. It’s bad enough that I’ve burdened you with this nonsense. I don’t know that I could bear it if your sisters, especially Maggie, were to know of the full extent of my humiliation.”

A million retorts spring to mind, in defense of her sisters, in defense of him, heartfelt speeches about how needing help does not make one a burden as well as wordless noises of frustration and the desire to bang her head against a wall. But with a deep breath of her own, Macy instead elects simply say yes.

“Alright, just between us.”

“And, please, if we could we just try?”

“Okay, Harry,” she says as she looks down at their joined hands, “we’ll give it a try.”


	3. Chapter 3

Macy gives his hands a squeeze before letting go. She’s reaching for the attic door’s doorknob when she realizes that Harry has yet to move. She looks back at him and calls out his name, a little confused. He meets her gaze but doesn’t immediately answer.

“Harry, c’mon,” she beckons, tilting her head at the door. 

He still doesn’t move. Instead his back stiffens even as his head tilts downwards. When he looks up again simultaneously every inch the proper Englishman with his posture and his soft, deferential tones and the most nervous man she’s ever seen that she wasn’t threatening with a fireball or job termination.

“Harry?”

“Ah, yes. I had rather hoped we could just get this over with before reconvening with your sisters.”

“I know, Harry. But we can’t do it here. I’m mean- I suppose we could but,” she grimaces before continuing, “I just thought you might be more comfortable if we did this in your own room.”

Harry’s head cocks a bit to the side in confusion. But it’s only for only a moment before understanding dawns on him, bringing with it a look of what she can only describe as dismay. If the man grabbed at his heart or conjured a string of pearls to clutch it wouldn’t surprise Macy in the least. He shakes his head and his hands rise as if to ward the very idea off.

“I’m going to have to see it, Harry,” she says as gently as she can. Of all the indignities he’s suffered in the past day she wishes she could spare him this one. But given the recent return and amplifications of her powers she just can’t justify the risk. “If I can’t see the, um, cag-"

“Device,” Harry interjects. "Shall we just call it a 'device'? Please?"

“Okay, device it is. But, Harry, I do kind of need to see what I’m doing or you could get hurt otherwise. Really hurt,” Macy bites at her lip before pressing on. “Of all the places you don’t want me, uh, miscalculating the application of my powers…” He winces and she can see that the implications have sunk in.

“Yes, yes, of course. That would be-” His eyes slide shut and she sees his nostrils flare as he takes a deep breath and nods. “Of course.”

After a few moments of Harry still not moving Macy calls to him one again.

“Could I meet you there? I just need a moment.”

Macy fights with herself for a moment before deciding against going to him. If he says he needs a moment then she’ll give him a moment.

“Take your time, Harry. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

And with one last look at her whitelighter, Macy leaves him to his moment.

\--

He’d asked for a moment but as it turned out he’d needed a few more than just the one. After what must be at least ten minutes Harry makes his way down to the ground floor, walking rather than orbing in what he knows just him dragging his feet. And for what? The sooner he and Macy can finish with this business, the sooner they can start putting it all behind them.

Halfway down the last flight of stairs Harry pauses. Damn. How had he forgotten to offer to wipe her memories? He’d meant to the minute the idea of her using her powers to break the blasted contraption off of him. Continuing down the steps he resolves to make the offer before they go any further in their dealings with his… problem.

When Harry descends the final step and stops in front of his bedroom’s door he catches the sound of footsteps approaching from the kitchen area. He freezes, suddenly unsure of who, other than Macy, might be home at this time. Harry hides his relief at the sound of Macy’s voice accompanying the steps by fiddling with his door and making a point of holding the door open for his charge.

His heart pounds as she walks past him and he briefly takes note of small canvas sack in her hand. His attention shifts as the familiar and always alluring fragrance of her hair fills his nose, causing him to wince as his body’s response is curtailed by the unforgiving encasement.

She takes his hand and pulls him away from the door. Macy’s lips are pressed into a worried line and her eyes are so filled with… Compassion, he decides. Compassion and not pity. Because otherwise this would then be truly unbearable.

He’s lead to stand in front of his bed and she drops her sack somewhere near the pillows and it lands heavily against the dark duvet. Macy asks him to wait where he is and he murmurs his assent as she goes to lock the door. When she returns to his side she fiddles with her cellphone before laying it down on his bedside table. 

With her back to him Harry watches as she pulls something from the sack. She makes a slight turn but isn’t quite facing him when he sees her swallow. She seems…nervous? The thought sets his stomach roiling and he’s suddenly gripped with the urge to call the whole thing off, to insist on finding one of those other alternatives Macy had mentioned earlier before his foolhardy mind had latched onto this obvious and colossal mistake.

“Macy,” he starts, licking his lips and trying to find the right order of words to begin both his apology and put an end to this twisted endeavor.

But Macy’s attention, it seems is elsewhere. Harry follows her gaze to his bedside table and stills as her softly spoken question reaches his ears.

"Harry... Is this one of the privacy candles we made a few months ago?"

He catches her turning towards him and can only guess at the expression she must have on her face. He looks anywhere but in her direction as he utters a soft and somewhat embarrassed, 'yes'. He knows his face has no doubt been flushed since the first moment they had started discussing his predicament but even still, Harry feels a fresh rush of heat flooding his face and burning his ears. Harry fights down the embarrassment, the shame and forces himself to look at her but instead of questions or laughter Macy simply nods. 

She moves to the night stand and he finally marks the object in her hand. It is another similar if significantly more intact candle and places it atop the nearly flat disc-like remnants of his previous candle. Harry watches transfixed, a curious mix of pride and maybe something _darker_ welling in his chest as Macy moves her hands over the two candles. Her voice soothing and low, murmuring an incantation while at the same time utilizing her powers to massage and coax the two disparate masses into a single, stout pillar.

Macy’s elegant fingers strike a match and the wick makes a sharp crackle as it catches fire. The enchanted light swirls upwards like a small beacon and the candle’s flickering flame illuminates Macy’s face for a brief moment, warming the soft brown tones of her complexion and painting her moving lips with a golden shine before releasing its magic upward and coating the ceiling and walls of Harry’s bedroom. 

Macy pauses for a moment as she gazes down at the dancing flame with a wistful, almost yearning look and Harry's heart aches for her. So much taken from her with himself in no small part to blame.

She turns back to him and it seems both their darker thoughts must be pushed to the side for now. Macy steps in close and meets his eyes, holding his gaze as her palms slide down his arms and she grasps his hands in her. She gives him a single squeeze before stepping back.

“Are you ready, Harry?”

He nods mutely.

She chews at her lip.

“Okay. Alright, Harry, I need you to take off your pants.”


	4. Chapter 4

Harry refuses to let his hand shake. There’s no backing out now. So his hands do _not_ shake as they slip the stiff leather belt from the buckle before moving to undo the button and zip of his flies. A slight tremble is _not_ the same thing as shaking. Harry winces as the weight of the metal buck pulls the placket of his trousers down and makes a muted clack against the plastic device beneath his underpants. 

The sound of the impact and probably his hiss of discomfort as well pulls Macy’s attention back onto him from wherever she’d gone to in her head. Harry curses himself for not moving quicker as now he must pull both trousers and shorts down with her attention most definitely on him. He tugs both articles down, taking extra care as he pulls the top band of his undergarments over his trapped and uncomfortably sensitive parts. He moves them just clear of the device but not so far as to expose any other part of him not contained within the molded plastic. Macy’s mouth forms an ‘o’ as her gaze falls to his groin. Harry braces himself as she steps up to him, unable to bring himself ask after the frown creasing her brow.

“I’m sorry, Harry. But we’re going to need them more off than this,” she says as her hands move to the slack waistband of his trousers still sitting rather high up on his thighs. 

Harry barely manages to tamp down a gasp as her cool fingers slide between the cotton fabric and his skin. But at the feel of her hands starting to ease his trousers and underpants lower his own hand fly to stop her. His fingers close over hers holding garments and hands trapped and stilled in his panicked grip.

“Wait.”

Macy pulls her hands away and stumbles back from him as if burned. 

“Oh god, Harry, I’m sorry! I’m-” A nervous laugh spills from her lips, high and thin. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course you can do this yourself. Sorry- Just- Sorry!” She gives her head a small shake and takes another step back.

“No, I wasn’t- It’s just-” Harry grits his teeth willing his mind and mouth to coordinate. He clears his throat and tries again. “Just how far down do you suppose you’ll need them?”

“I’d say at least down past your knees so I can…”

Harry’s heart pounds painfully at her pause and he fights to hear her over the roaring in his ears.

“So you can…?”

She gives him an apologetic smile that does nothing to ease the heavy thumping in his chest or the roiling in his stomach.

“Harry, I’m going to need to get pretty close to you, to it. I don’t think I’ll have to touch you but my hands,” she mimes cupping her hands as if around a small globe, “and my face will need to be pretty near so I can visualize my powers. So your knees are going to have to be-” she raises her hands and mimes them pushing apart- oh god. “Do you know what I mean, Harry?”

Harry swallows and nods, adjusting his suddenly damp grip on his clothes.

“Then perhaps,” he clear his throat again. “Perhaps it would be better to divest altogether.”

“Yeah, it might be. But only if you’re comfortable with that.”

“I- Well, I suppose I’ve have no choice but to be,” he says just before a thought strikes him. “Unless, you would rather I didn’t? Macy,” he starts, shock and shame at his callousness running through him. How in all this time had he failed to take this into consideration? To take her needs into consideration beyond his desire to have her not witness his humiliation? “My god, how have I been so monstrously inconsiderate? This entire time, I never once asked you how or what I could do to lessen your discomfort! How-”

“It’s fine, Harry. I’m fine. Yes, this is a little… weird, even for us. But I’m here for _you_.”

“And you shouldn’t have to be. I am the damned whitelighter here and yet I have had to prevail upon you and your sisters to- to-”

“Rescue you?” she offers with a bit of a smile.

“As it were,” Harry concedes with sniff.

“Harry, if I were too uncomfortable, I guarantee I would tell you.”

“But would you?” he asks, genuinely unsure. There have been so many things they’ve not said to each other. So many times when their lines of communications have been crossed. And even now, things left unsaid continue rise up from the depths at which he’d thought them buried to interfere with their still healing friendship.

“Yes, of course. I promise.”

She must read the lingering doubt on his face because she quickly presses on.

“Fine. How does this sound, we use a safeword.”

“A safeword?”

“It’s a word for when-”

“Macy Vaughn, if I know what a cock cage is, I damn well know what a safeword is as well!” 

What on earth was it about him that had everyone he met insisting he was some sort of sexless naïf? He was nearing his hundredth year, for pity’s sake. Did the entire world seem to think he’d spent his entire mortal and magical existence in a monastery?

“My apologies, Professor Greenwood,” Macy’s own retort is cool despite the rising annoyance he spots in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to underestimate the unlimited vastness of your knowledge.”

Harry pulls a long breath through his nose but refrains from speaking further. He sees Macy turn her head, nostrils flaring as she takes a deep breath of her own. Shame floods him; here she was offering him aid in this hopelessly tawdry situation and he was snapping at her.

“No, Macy, you have my apologies,” Harry dips his head to catch her eye and offers an repentant half-smile before continuing in a softer voice, “I’m afraid this entire situation has left me rather bereft of sense and manners. But, yes, I know what a safeword is and yes, if you would like to use one I am absolutely amenable. What word did you have in mind?”

He readjusts his hold on his trousers and at the jangle of his belt buckle he notes a small smile turning up the side of her lips. A tightness he hadn’t realized had built up in his chest releases as she beings to speak.

“I was thinking ‘Erlenmeyer’.”

“Erlenmeyer? Like the flask, yes?”

That earns him an another, brighter smile that Harry can’t help but return.

“Yeah, exactly like that. And, Harry, it’s for you to use, too. If you need things to stop, if things are getting painful or too upsetting for you, literally just say the word and we stop.”

“'Erlenmeyer' and we stop. Yes, I can agree to that.”

“Good. Now, Harry, are the pants staying on or coming off?”

With an exaggerated huff and a roll of his eyes he answers, “Off.”

Her hand reaches out to squeeze his arm before she stepping back and turning away from him. With a quick shove Harry sends his trousers and underpants to the floor.

-

When he's bare from the waist down she has him sit on his bed next to a towel he hadn’t realized she had brought with her. It was one belonging to a set of hers, a deep indigo with thick, golden geometric patterns weaving throughout. His fingers twitch at the memory of the one time she'd lent it to him during his very first stay at the Vera-Vaughn home. His thoughts on the softness and remembered fragrance of said towel are interrupted when owner of said towel lowers herself to kneel between his splayed legs.

Harry closes his eyes to the sight, too close as it is to so very many of his late night musings. Although, in those rare occasions, when his room is lit only by the flickering glow of a single, enchanted candle, when Harry permits his tired mind and weary heart entertain such thoughts, their positions are more often than not reversed. His hands pushing _her_ knees apart, _her_ gasps at the feel his breath against her most intimate parts. Harry winces. The pinch of the device against his skin is a welcome reproof against such inappropriately timed thoughts. God, to have those fantasies turned upside down, twisted and perverted...

The humiliation at his situation and rage at the one caused it, all that that had momentarily receded rushes back over him nearly chokes him.

"Macy,” he whispers at the ceiling, his head tilted back to avoid the sight that even in his dreams he'd never allowed himself to indulge in. "I am so damned sorry for all of this. You should never have had to- This was never a position I would have ever wanted to put you in. If I hadn't been so stu-"

Even with his eyes still trained on the ceiling Harry catches her movements as she raises herself higher onto her knees. Her hands slide over his and can feel the combined heat of their joined hands at either side of his naked hips. She stops the flow of his self-castigation with a single squeeze. He looks down at her and she shakes her head when his lips part to continue his diatribe against himself. Her head tilts and even if she never uttered a single word he would know what she’s about to say.

"Harry, this is not your fault. None of this is your fault. We may have made some really stupid mistakes and maybe that helped lead us to where we are. But this? This thing that she did to you? That's all on her. And Harry, we're going to make her pay. I promise you." 

A look of that he had hoped to never see again flashes over her features, a _malevolent_ look that’s gone so quickly Harry wonders if he really even saw it at all. 

"I’m going to make her pay."

\--

It resists her. She can feel the device trying to push her off almost as if it’s alive. It almost feels like it’s _clinging_ to Harry. Macy shifts closer, shuffling forward on her knees. She murmurs a soft, _sorry_ , as her shoulders brush against the inside of Harry’s knees causing them to spring apart. She narrows her eyes at the bright blue plastic, ignoring the appendage trapped within, and wills the thing to crack.

Macy hears a muffled moan sounding above and immediately loosens her mental grip on the cage. She asks him if he wants to stop. She wants him to tell her to stop but instead Harry begs her to keep going. He sound like he’s in pain and sure enough when she looks up Harry’s face is strained and sweat is beaded on his forehead.

“Harry, we can stop. How about we take a break? We can get you some ice. Or maybe a potion for the pain and to help you sleep? We can try this again in the morning.”

“No, no potions. No more potions. Please, Macy, I can manage,” he grits out between clenched teeth.

“Harry…”

“ _I can_. I just- Macy, I just need you to take your goddamn powers and rip this bloody, blasted thing off of me, _right bloody now_.” 

Macy’s jaw drops at his explosion. But before she can even think to respond Harry leans forward and presses his forehead tightly against hers.

“Please, Macy. _Help me._ ”

Macy feels her heart crack at the abject misery in her whitelighter’s voice. Her hands rise to hold his face. She presses fierce kiss to the side of his face before tracing her thumb over the hard bone of his cheek and wiping away the dark mark of her lipstick. His head tilts against hers and they are still for a moment.

Macy sighs inwardly, this man is her friend- no, he is her _family,_ _~~no, he’s more than that~~_ and Macy will do anything for her family. If this is what Harry needs, then this is what Macy is going do.

“Okay, Harry. Lean back. This is going to hurt.”

\--

He’s not quite lying down on his bed with his upper body propped up on his elbows. She doesn’t really want to think about the view he must be seeing with her wedged between his knees and her hands cupped around but not touching his parts of himself she's sure he'd never intended for her to see much less be so close to. She doesn’t belong here. This is far too intimate a position for her for not having that kind of a relationship with him. For all her longing and for all his strange and almost jealous-like behavior these past few months, Harry has only ever asked her for friendship and Macy knows she has to be content with that.

The painful looking way he fills the plastic cage is a purely physical response to skin-to-skin contact and the nearness of another human body. This has nothing to do with her. _A purely physiological response_ , Macy reminds herself firmly. This has nothing to do with her and her jumbled up feelings and everything to do with helping Harry.

Macy focuses her power and dives deeper into the physical essence of the cage than she’s ever done with any other object. She recites the same incantation she used to soften and merge her candle with Harry’s, urging the plastic to bend to her will. 

Macy pulls her powers slowly through the brightly colored material while taking care not to touch Harry, himself. Small gasps and the occasional bobbing of the device let her know when she’s skimmed too closely to his… flesh. Her focus blots out all but her search for thin or weaken points even as the magic weaved into the molded plastic tries to push her away.

And then an odd thing happens. As Macy digs her power even deeper into the device she notices that the cage’s magic feels soft, almost malleable. Where its physical properties continue refusing to budge, the magic within appears to be capable, almost eager to be molded into something new. 

However, before she can further examine the peculiar, almost sentient nature of the curse Macy hears a crack and the pieces of the ring that had circled both the root of his penis and his scrotum, that which held the cage in place fly, into her hands. Macy stares in shock at the little blue shards lying in her hands. She hadn’t even noticed the plastic starting to give, she was so focused on the magic within. 

After dropping the plastic remnants on the bedside table Macy reaches out to pull the main body of the cage off only to have Harry’s hands close loosely around her wrists. Even with his head bowed she can see the tight line of his lips as he shakes his head. Understanding, she pulls her hands gently out of his grip and leans over to pluck the towel resting beside his hip. Harry moves his arms out of the way as she drapes the towel over his lap wanting to offer him what little privacy she can. Then she presses a kiss to the top of his bowed head as she rises to her feet. 

When she moves to leave he stops her, his hand once again reaching for hers, soft, tired voice asking her not to go. And so she doesn’t. She’s here for as long as he needs her. 

Macy tries not to watch as Harry’s other hand slides under the dark towel and she concentrates instead on the way he presses his head tightly against the bottom edge of her ribs and on the feel of his hand leaving hers to curl and clench over her hip. And when that hand leaves her to join the other under the towel Macy cards her fingers through Harry's thick hair. She sweeps her knuckles down his cheek, trying to offer some kind of soothing counterpoint to the pain she can hear in his hissing breaths as he works to pull the chastity device from his body.

After a long, tense minute the silence is broken by the clatter of hard plastic meeting the hardwood floor.

\--

With the plastic bits tucked into her little bag and her towel still draped across his lap Harry hears her make one last offer to bring him anything he might need. He shakes his head and remains silent, words locked in his throat as she makes her way to the door. It takes everything in him not to call her back. A weaker man would have asked her to stay. A braver man would have begged.

\--

Macy pulls the door shut behind her leaving Harry to his privacy. She’d offered to bring him ice or to make him tea but he’d declined claiming the only he’d wanted was to sleep and put the ordeal behind them. Seeing the fatigue etched in his face, Macy was helpless to do anything other than leave him to his rest. 

But before she’d left Macy had asked to take the device for further examination. She’d seen indecision and embarrassment but ultimately he’d acquiesced. And so now here she was in her own bathroom with the sink plugged and filling with hot water. After adding a bit of soap she dumps the plastic bits of the device and gives each piece a good wash.

She absolutely means to take the disassembled ‘cock cage’, as Harry had put it, up to the attic where she can study it and determine the nature of the magic that had animated it in the first place. But the day has been so long and so… eventful.

Her bed is so soft and the sheets so cool.

It will only be a minute. Besides, the pieces of the cage are still drying on hand towel on her vanity and she’s only going to rest her eyes for a minute.

It’s the last thought Macy has before sleep pulls her under.

-

And nearly ten hours later the first thing Macy hears as her bare feet hit the top of the steps leading to the ground floor is the sound of Harry bellowing out the foulest and most extremely disturbing string of curses she has ever heard in her life.


	5. Chapter 5

The mid-morning Michigan sun pours relentlessly through the trio of windows set high on the wall of Harry’s bedroom, mindless of the Manor’s decidedly west-facing, Seattle location. Harry shifts, grimacing not only at the light slanting over his face but at the residual aches in his shoulders and thighs left over from a period of being physically restrained that Harry’s mind quickly shies away from.

Harry turns his thoughts to his duties and his charges, trying to pull on that which drives his powers. But after only the briefest musings on research and lesson plans, as per the usual Harry’s thoughts inevitably circle back to a soft smile, a warm -if guarded- heart, and fine-boned hands. Delicate, bronze-brown fingers resting on his bare thighs as Macy knelt between them, eyes trained-

No, not on _him_. That’s _not_ what happened. She had rendered him assistance out of the kindness of her heart. For all that she clung to her science and control, Macy Vaughn, at her core, was made of kindness. And he will not twist her actions into something they were not. Not again.

Harry berates himself even as his hand slides over his chest to rest a moment over his heart, his body already heating to the feel of his own hand against his skin and the memory of her magic and warm breath swirling into the device and over his trapped cock.

He hadn’t bothered to dress after his flight to the shower following Macy’s departure the night before. His thoughts, his traitorous, dangerous, _salacious_ thoughts had drifted to her then as well. More than once. Before, during, after his shower. The borrowed and now soiled towel at the foot of his bed bearing the evidence of his weakness.

_Don’t do this, Harry. Not again._

His hand pauses in its journey south, fingers curling against the soft hairs just above his root of his organ.

_Don’t turn what she’s done into… **that**. She deserves better. Especially from **you**._

Harry’s head presses back into his pillow as his thoughts and body wage a familiar war. But again and again his thoughts circle back.

_Macy._

_Macy, Macy, Macy..._

Almost against his will her image rises in his mind’s eye, the memories of her hands and his ever present yearning for a love beyond friendship winning over his dedication to duty and assertions that he was _content_ with what they already had.

All at once, behind tightly shut eyes, she is kneeling before him and her lips are soft against his inner thigh, brushing over the hair that thickens as it gets closer to his manhood. She looks up at him with those dark, luminous eyes and he feels her lips curling into a smile against him. Simultaneously she is standing beside him as she was last night, her hand stroking through his hair as he presses his nose into her soft belly. He breathes his most desperate pleas into her warm skin. She answers him with quiet words that sink into his very bones. Words he knows with absolute certainty he will never hear outside of his fantasies.

Harry’s jaw tightens and his hand drifts lower, seeking out his aching co-

_no._

Her image is torn from his thoughts as his growing arousal met with a devastatingly familiar resistance. Horror slams a cold fist into his gut as the edges of his fingernails tick against hard plastic.

_Please. God. No._

**_NO._ **

His shaking hand knocks the sheet covering his hips aside and stream of rage-filled obscenities explodes from Harry in a roar rattles the very walls of his room.

\--

Harry’s voice bellowing out obscenities kicks Macy’s entire being into overdrive. She can feel the immediate spasms in her arms and legs as her body demands she to run to him. Macy’s heel strikes the edge of the stair, sliding against the thick runner sending her flying over the last half dozen steps. An unfortunate meeting of face and hardwood is only narrowly preempted with a sharp shove of her powers against the floor. But still the landing is not without pain and she shakes out the hot sting in her hands as she scrambles back up and rushes over to Harry’s door.

“Harry? Harry, what’s going on?” Macy calls out to him in a stage whisper. She goes quiet for a moment and looks over her shoulder, hoping Harry’s yelling hasn’t woken her sleeping sisters. “Harry, tell me what’s happening.”

All she hears is more swearing followed by a low groan of pain. Dammit, was he still hurt? How had he not healed by now?

“Harry, can you let me in?” she asks with forced evenness. Whatever is happening with Harry right now, she doubts it would help for her to add her own heart thumping panic into the mix.

“Harry?”

Silence.

A full minute passes and the pounding of Macy’s heart echoes in her ears and worry grips at the rest of her making her muscles ache with tension. Doubt creeps in with the lengthening quiet and she’s just about made her peace with the fact that either her assistance isn’t needed or, maybe more likely, her presence is unwanted. The man had been through so many indignities the night before. She would absolutely understand if he didn’t quite want to see her yet. She’ll give him his privacy if that was what he wants just as soon as she knows he’s not hurt.

She tries again.

“You don’t need to let me in,” she says, leaning her head against the door. “But please, I just need to know that you’re okay.”

More silence.

Macy’s just about to push herself away from the door, unsure if she should leave or try to break the lock, when she hears the padding of bare feel towards the door.

The door swings open and Macy’s heart stops. She swears it does.

Apparently, in the wake of this continuing madness there’s very little left in the way of shame, at least when it comes to Harry flinging down the pillow he’d been holding in front of him. The soft thump as it hits the floor hardly matches the deep frown creasing his forehead and the continuing flow of expletives. When she manages to gather her courage Macy’s eyes move over Harry to see his pale body completely bare but for the... 

_Oh shiiiiiii-_

Macy rushes through the gap and slams the door shut behind her, no longer caring what noise she made so long as no one sees what she’s seeing. She tries to pull back on the shock that she knows can probably be seen on her face and tamp down the heat flooding her cheeks and cascading through her body that she knows can’t. 

Harry stands before her fuming and without a single stitch of clothing. Between his thighs, below the thick thatch of dark, soft looking hair is the blue plastic contraption shining dully under the rays of the morning light.

“H-how?” 

She thinks back to her vanity and how… Fuck. She can’t remember seeing it or _not_ seeing it there when she’d trudged out of her room in search of coffee. The sound of Harry pacing past her draws Macy’s attention back to him. He walks to the simple writing table under his windows. He leans against it and she can hear him sucking in a long breath between clenched teeth before turning to face her.

“I woke up this morning and the bloody thing was just… there.” He gestures angrily at his groin. “ _Again_.” 


	6. Chapter 6

Macy shakes her head trying once again to dissuade the agitated whitelighter from his ‘plan’. For every point she makes he has a counterpoint. And where the rapid-fire back and forth is normally something she loves to do with him, right now she’d like nothing more than to grab the still naked man and curse his mouth shut so she can get her point across. But Macy Vaughn won’t be like _those women_. Instead, she tries to quiet him in other ways. Hard logic couched in soft words and, perhaps, a soft touch? 

_That last part’s cheating_ , a small voice inside her whispers. A small voice that acknowledges that whatever his feelings might or might not be for her, Harry is still a man and how is that any better than what others have done to him?

She squashes the voice down as she steps in front of Harry, cutting short the circuit he’s been pacing for the past few minutes. Her hands land on the cool skin of his shoulders and she lets them slide down the backs of his arms until she’s cupping his equally chilled elbows. It has the effect she’d expected. He stills and looks at her with lips parted in a way that almost distracts her from her purpose. She feels a shiver run under her fingers. Macy casts about the room and frowns.

“Where’s your robe, Harry?”

Harry’s lips twist into an impatient line as he looks towards the back of the room and clicks his fingers. In a flash similar to that of his orbing, a dark length of thick fabric swirls around his hand before settling into the form of his robe. He shrugs into it quickly, his brusque movements dislodging Macy's hands as he goes, before presenting himself peevishly to her. He holds his hands out as if to ask, _satisfied_?

It’s tough, but Macy manages to resist the dual urges to roll her eyes and smack his head. Jackass. She should’ve just let the idiot freeze. But something in her look must warn him of her growing ire because she sees his shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath and he bows his head contritely. He tugs the edges of his robe, one over the other and ties the belt loosely around his waist.

“My apologies,” he sighs. “I’m being an ass. And thank you, I suppose I am- was a bit cold.”

“It’s alright, Harry. I get it,” she says, laying her hand over his cheek, ignoring the way the tickle of his stubble against her palm echoes elsewhere in her body. She lifts his head while ducking her own to meet his eyes. “I get it.”

\--

There’s a sudden but soft sound of feet rushing past Harry’s door and the two spring apart. It’s not until after the front door clicks quietly shut and the footsteps fade that Harry and Macy slip out of his room, Macy practically dragging the still robe clad Harry out to the kitchen for a hurried breakfast.

They manage to keep from discussing Harry’s unwanted, if sort of pretty –in Macy’s opinion- accessory while they eat. But the moratorium on the subject doesn’t last much longer than the meal itself. And despite her misgivings, now even greater than they had been the night before, Macy agrees to try once and _only once_ more to use her powers on the device. She didn’t like it the first time he suggested it and she doesn’t like it now. Why is she so weak for those damn eyes of his?

“We’ll need a way to contain it, you know. Otherwise, we’ll probably be right back here tomorrow, if not sooner,” Macy says as she slots the last of their used dishes into the dishwasher.

Harry grimaces and nods handing her the dish towel to dry her hands.

“Ab-” Harry’s face sours briefly before continuing. “There was a box. I wasn’t able to see it clearly. However, I imagine given my current predicament that it was just as enchanted as this blasted thing.”

“Then who’s to say we can’t make one of our own?”

“Enchant our own container-”

“And toss the device in there the second I break it off-”

“And be rid of the damn thing for good.”

“ _Yes_.”

Macy watches as the tight line of his shoulders eases, as does the tension around his mouth. The hopeful shine in Harry’s eyes is bright but without the manic frenzy of desperation from yesterday. A sudden urge to throw her arms around him and plant a quick kiss to his unshaven cheek seizes her and she barely manages to keep herself in check, from ruining the moment.

“Alright, let’s do it.”

\--

After a brief, if a bit frenetic, search of the attic Macy is left glaring at the various nooks and crannies with her hands on her hips. Somehow, amongst all the decades upon decades worth of accumulated clutter and junk of the attic the pair doesn’t manage to find a single item that meets the necessary criteria. Macy suggests they ask her sisters to find one amongst the piles of random items that littered the inner recesses of the Command Center but Harry argues rather strenuously against.

“I’d rather not have to explain the why of our need. And even if they were to agree not to ask questions, I would be uncomfortable-”

“You don’t want to ask them a favor and then still be keeping things from them?”

The grateful look he gives her lets Macy know she’s hit the nail right on the head. And after a quiet moment a thought occurs to her.

“You know, I think I actually know where we can find the right kind of box.”

-

When Macy quietly offers up her own jewelry box Harry hides a wince. 

It was Harry’s own gift to Macy on her last birthday, a small wooden box with an inlaid geometric pattern done in mother of pearl and a tiny, mostly decorative clasp adorning its front. Given to her when he’d been snapping at her and licking at his own self-inflicted wounds over what he’d convinced himself was her preference for his darklighter. They’d tried for civility that night but even still, her birthday 'celebration' had been strained. And then a few weeks later, just before Christmas… 

Harry rubs at his face wishing he could scrub those memories of the aftermath of Maggie’s almost wedding from his mind, from Macy’s. Or better still, scrub- _erase_ that 'moment' from their collective history altogether.

Ten minutes later Harry’s hand is closing around the proffered handle of an athame. He steps back from the table that serves as their work bench, eyes locked on Macy as she begins to chant. Her magic gathers around them with every whispered word and Harry’s toes curl into the thin rug under his bare feet. With his free hand he shields his eyes from the brilliant, blue-white light that flares to life deep in the grooves of the sigils, newly carved into the little box-cum-soon-to-be prison for the device. And even when the casting is done and the glow fades from the mutilated box, Harry finds it takes a moment for him to tear his gaze away from her, to catch his breath and for the pounding in his chest to calm.

-

Confusion quirks Harry’s lips and lifts his eyebrow as Macy picks up the box and heads not for the attic door but the large window at the far end of the room. She tips her head and Harry wraps a hand around the edge of his dressing gown, holding it secure as he hurries to join her.

Macy seats herself on the bench, their bench, but before he can join her she holds out her hand gesturing for him to stay where he is. With a look and a tilt of her head the large, domed chest by the sofa slides smoothly across the floor. It comes to an abrupt halt just before it hits Macy’s knees and despite the humiliating awfulness of their situation Harry can’t help the puff of delighted laughter that leaves him. She meets his gaze and they trade crooked smiles.

She rises with her arm outstretched and Harry finds himself moving towards her, her beckoning hand drawing him in like a magnet. She meets him halfway, although instead of taking his own hand like he had assumed she would a blanket flies past him and into her arm. Harry quickly shoves his arm down to his side, embarrassed by his presumption and hopes his face isn’t quite as red as the burning in his face tells him it must be.

It’s only when he feels her cool fingers sliding against his palm and curling around his hand that his thoughts and gaze are drawn from the shivering leaves of a tree that doesn’t really exist. Macy leads him to the now blanket covered chest and pushes him to half lean, half perch against the top before seating herself in front of him. Entranced by her hands, Harry watches as she reaches for the box and slides it along the bench until it rests against her thigh. His breathing altogether stops, locked in his chest at the sight of her hands lifting to the tie of his dressing gown and picking at the simple knot.

Harry swallows, sinks his teeth into his lip, tries to concentrate on the tree outside the window- anything to try and banish the rising tide of his arousal. But try as he might, he cannot help the way his eyes return to her again and again. 

The knot unfurls and Harry curls his hands around the edges of the chest’s lid as Macy’s hands wrap around the edges of his robe and she gingerly pulls the material away from his lap uncovering the bright blue device, his scrotum and the organ already pressed so tightly against its unforgiving confines. The heavy fabric sags under its own weight and Harry shivers as the red trimmed collar falls open and a cool draft of air sweeps over him from bared neck to ankle. His fingers dig into the metal straps beneath the soft fleece of the blanket. He fights down a moan when her hands land atop his thighs, the tips of her fingers twitching for a moment before her palms slide downward to rest against the inside of his knees. 

_Macy, love, **please**._

But Harry’s silent plea goes unanswered and the woman sitting before pushes at his knees with her soft, golden hued hands- and god, how they look so pretty and elegant against his own pale skin and light dusting of dark hair. Those hands, her beautiful hands push his knees apart exposing him even further to her very serious regard. And when she leans in close, her hands skimming back up the inside of his thighs and magic beginning to prod at the plastic encasing his cock Harry’s head falls back and no amount of will power can suppress the quiet moan that falls from his parted, bloodied lips.

-

It doesn’t seem to go badly at first. Macy nudges at the plastic, sinking her magic into the various pieces to search out the weak points she’d been able to identify the night before. She hears Harry’s breath catch as she pushes at what feels like a seam in the thin but sturdy ring that runs over the root of his shaft and under wrinkled but quickly tightening sack below. She reaches under to press at the bottom of the ring with the pad of her fingertip, hoping physical contact will direct more of her power inwards and force the stubborn ring to crack as it had last night. It almost feels like it’s working and Macy increases the pressure, closing her eyes to concentrate at the push and pull between her power and the curse. 

_Almost there…_

A kind of thrill, a hum of power tickles at her hand as she slides her finger from side to side, feeling for the ring’s ‘sweet spot’ as it were when Harry’s hips jump and his hand is suddenly clamped around her wrist.

Macy shoots Harry a worried gaze only to see his eyes closed and his normally full lips pressed into a thin line. His nostrils flare with each deep breath he seems to be fighting to drag in. The moment his grip slackens just the tiniest bit Macy tries to pull her hand back but Harry’s hand follows, fingers wrapped loosely, gently even, around her wrist but still not releasing her.

“Wait, wait. I need a min- a- just a moment.” 

They stay that way for another two or three breaths, her hand hovering over his trapped manhood and his flexing over her wrist as he works to overcome his discomfort.

“Alright, I’m ready. I’m fine.”

“Harry…”

“I’m _fine_. Please, Macy, you were close. I could feel it. You were _so close_.”

Macy nods despite knowing he can’t see her with his head still tilted back and eyes closed. God, he was beautiful.

_No, Macy. Now is definitely **not** the time for those kind of thoughts. He needs your **help**._

“Okay, Harry. Last time, last try,” she says as she scoots to the very edge of the bench. This will be the _very_ last try.

Macy fingers go lax in Harry’s grip as she waits for him to release her. But instead he tugs at her and she watches his face as Harry pulls her hand back under him until her fingertips once again brush the thick, skin-warmed plastic of the cock ring and a soft weight fills her palm. A pained, almost sad look flashes across his face. Before she can lose herself in that look, lose her nerve, Macy forces her attention back to her task. With one hand cupped under him she forces all embarrassment to the back of her mind and lays her other hand directly on top of the device holding all of him in her hands.

She starts with a nudge and Harry hisses but urges her to go on. So with one last deep breath Macy unleashes her powers and with the will of a Charmed One she demands the pieces of cursed plastic crack and shatter and get the goddamn fuck off of her Harry.

“ _Macy_. _Teeth_ ,” she thinks she hears him whisper but her focus is on the flow of her power and the kick of the curse as it fights back against her will.

And then it’s not a whisper at all, it’s a scream.

“Teeth. Oh god, _TEETH_. Oh godohgodohgod- Ma- **_ERLENMEYER_**.”

Macy gasps and her hands fly off of him. His eyes lock with her and Macy’s heart pounds at the sheer terror in Harry’s paling face and shaking voice.

“Oh god, Macy, _it’s grown bloody **teeth**!_”


	7. Chapter 7

Macy pushes a shaking hand through Harry’s sweat soaked hair. He grinds his forehead tightly against her chest, his harsh breaths rushing over her breastbone. She wonders if he can feel the wild pounding that hasn’t stopped even as his curses and moans of pain have died off. Harry’s fingers dig just short of painfully into the sides of her hips, his grip pulsing in time to his breathing.

Macy holds herself still as his hands drift up her sides, letting go for a moment just before his palms curve over her shoulders. As he braces himself on her shoulders Macy allows herself one last caress. She smooths her fingers over Harry’s head and presses a kiss to his crown before moving herself in closer. She gathers the fabric of his robe in her fist and tucks herself under his arm as he pushes himself to his feet. 

Supporting him with both her own body and her powers she leads them one hobbling step after another to the other side of the attic. Then as gently as she can and without letting her power anywhere near Harry's 'problem' area Macy lowers them both down until they’re seated on the worn sofa that had for far too many months been Harry's bed. If she could have somehow been the one with teleportation powers, god, she would have whisked him back to ~~her~~ _his own_ bed by now.

And then once again, Macy finds herself between her whitelighter’s spread knees and _again_ it’s to inspect the cruel predicament that’s been forced upon him. Harry hisses and tangles his hands with hers, trying to brush her away. Taking his hands, Macy presses and holds them firmly to the sofa cushion, promising she wouldn’t use any more magic on him. They were absolutely done with that route, for sure. But she is going to have to take a look at him. Those screams- She blinks away her own tears and swallows down her own fright at the echo of his voice still ringing in her ears. She has to see what that _thing_ has done to him. That’s non-negotiable and he needs to let her do it. For her own peace of mind. _Please_.

“Harry, please. Please, please, _please_ … Baby, I just need to see if you’re okay.” God, that was getting to be repetitive but it was the truth. The way he’d cried out and slapped her hands… The shining tracks that had yet to dry on his cheeks. Macy’s stomach roils for a moment before a feeling not unlike steely, cold hellfire surges through her leaving her a little light headed and her palms throbbing. _I’m going to peel every freaking square inch of skin off that bitch and I am going to fucking enjoy her every goddamn scream right up to the last._

She feels Harry go still under her hands and she looks up to see his throat bob, his expression understandably nervous and- or is that actual fear? What was he searching her face for, she wonders. Does he not trust her? 

“I’ll be as quick as I can, Harry. No magic,” she reassures him one more time, rubbing at the backs of his hands and squelching the urge to pull his twitching fingers to her lips for a kiss. Or even just hold his hand to her cheek until her own heart settles down. 

Harry swallows again but nods, twisting his fingers in the folds of his robe before tucking his hands under his legs. Macy scoots herself into place and Harry eases the vice like clamp his knees have on her ribs. She slowly sweeps her palms up and down the tense muscles of his thighs until she feels him calm a bit more. Then, true to her word, she gives Harry and the device a speedy but thorough once over.

-

There are flakes of dried blood near the root and dark but tiny smears that she can see even through the brightly tinted plastic of the tube. Any actual puncture seems to have already healed thanks to Harry’s whitelighter nature but she can still spot tender looking divots up and down his shaft where he’d been ‘bit’. Closer to the tip of his penis there seems to have been much more of the ‘biting’ but without being able to remove the cage and pull back the foreskin there isn’t much of a way to tell how deep the punctures had gone. Even with the healing, knowing the extent of the damage would have been good to know, Macy sighs unhappily to herself. 

As she nears finishing up, Macy runs her finger over the slit at the tip of the tube. She feels a shudder that doesn’t necessarily feel like it came from Harry. She does it again and jerks her hand back at the definite shiver in the plastic. She holds her hands well away from it, afraid to set it off again. 

Macy settles for observing it from a strictly visual standpoint, taking note of a slight crusting at the tip. Something that contained but wasn’t entirely made of dried blood. Something a bit more clear, perhaps? Macy bites her lip as heat blooms briefly in her cheeks as she remembers how tightly pressed, how very full- 

_Don’t dwell, Macy,_ she admonishes herself _. Normal. Normal. Normal. **Don’t dwell**._

Well, whatever the dried stuff was composed of, it’s fairly evident that Harry is in need of a good wash. But how to do that? Macy can’t even begin to imagine. A question to be researched and answered later, she decides before signaling to Harry that she’s done.

Rising up from her crouch, Macy decides that fighting to get the robe from under him would more likely cause Harry more grief than not. Instead, she calls the blanket from where it had fallen to the base of the chest. She takes a seat next to Harry, being careful not to jostle him too much and draws the blanket across both their laps. 

Macy smooths the soft chenille over Harry’s leg, her thumb rubbing light circles over his thigh as she tries to work out in her head what to say next. She’s just about to bring up the hygiene issue when movement catches her eye. Harry, with eyes barely open reaches down to cover her hand with his own. He wraps his fingers around her wrist and slides his damp palm upwards until he’s cupping her elbow. A question forms in Macy’s head but she doesn’t speak it aloud just yet.

When his fingers tighten and he draws her towards himself and she offers no resistance, just lets herself be pulled against his side. Lets him arrange her arm across his chest until he’s wrapped himself in her embrace. _Whatever you need, Harry._ His warm breath puffs across her closed eyes and she can feel the heavy thunder of his heart under her chin. For all that the ‘teeth’ have receded, it appears that the merciless, vice-like grip the thing has on him has still not let up one bit. Harry whispers her name over and over again like a mantra against his pain. 

Minutes ticked by, and when she moves to nestle herself even closer she feels a tendril of magic brush against the underside of her arm. It tickles and Macy sucks in a quick breath as she feels something pluck almost imperceptibly at her wrist. She draws her hand back from around Harry’s shoulder, working to sit up without having to place any pressure on his quiet but still tense form. At the loss of her warmth Harry murmurs a weak protest and Macy lays her hand against his jaw, stroking her thumb over the roughened line. 

Gripping the back of the sofa, Macy stretches up to press her cheek against his. Lips near his ear, she makes shushing noises and promises that she’s not leaving him. She eases herself away after a moment to look down at his lap, pulling the blanket back just enough to reveal the device. Nothing seemed to have changed. She glances back at her whitelighter but his eyes are still closed, shut tight against the persistent pain. She moves her hand and holds it just above Harry’s groin and lets her own eyes slide shut. 

Macy opens up her senses and there it is again, the soft, formless kind of magic that seems just short of sentience. It feels as if it’s full of a nervous, an _anxious_ kind of energy. An energy that is reaching out in a thin vine-like way, seeming to be seeking out comfort in much the same way Harry had when he’d been the one to tug at Macy until she was holding him. 

What exactly was this thing that the vile bitch had attached to Harry, that it seemed just as miserable a ‘creature’ as the man it was attached to?

“Harry,” Macy calls cautiously out to him. Given his earlier reactions- she doubts he’s going to like the idea currently brewing in her head. She settles her hand on the blanket, fingers resting lightly on, but not yet pulling back the fringed edge.

“Mmm?”

“I want to try something,” she tells him quietly, “to see if I can make it hurt you a little less.”

In the relative silence of the attic she might as well be shouting. Harry stiffens and Macy winces. When he opens his eyes and she knows she has his attention, Macy pushes on. She keeps her hand motionless on the blanket while she explains everything to him. As she goes on, Harry sits up a little straighter, listening with the kind of attentiveness he always seems to have when someone is speaking about magic. 

Macy makes sure to go into as much detail as possible, knowing how it calms the scholar in him. She tells him about the odd, almost pliable feel to the magic she noticed on her first attempt to break the device. How the device felt infused with magic as opposed to created with magic. The amorphous way that magic had made the object feel, in a way unlike any other cursed or enchanted item she’d ever encountered and unlike any that Harry, himself, had ever described to her.

It seemed to both be searching out for something and recoiling at every brush of Macy’s powers, like it was a wild thing both deathly afraid and in desperate need of comfort. If she hadn’t combed through the actual plastic with her powers she might have though it as near to a living thing as an object could be without actually being ‘alive’. When Macy finishes her ‘report’ they sit quietly for a moment as Harry absorbs the new information.

Harry clears his throat, and in a strained voice asks, “S-so, _ahem_ , what, ah, was it that you wanted to try?”

“I want to see if I can, um, do something that might calm it down. If calming down is something it’s capable of doing…” 

Her fingers curl over the edge of the blanket and she nervously brushes the fringe loose from the soft curling hairs under his navel. Harry’s hand covers hers, pressing both flat and still against his belly. He grimaces as the device reacts to some unknown stimuli and bears down, albeit toothlessly on Harry’s private parts for a brief but intense few seconds. 

Lips parted, he pants in the wake of the latest assault. When Harry’s grip and presumably the grip of the device as well eases he slumps back against the sofa. His head lolls tiredly against the wooden, scrollwork edge of the sofa’s back until he’s facing her. His pale face looks so tired, so defeated that the weak leash that’s been holding Macy back disintegrates. 

Macy stretches up slowly and drapes her arm back over his chest, pulling herself back into place against his side. She slides her other arm between his bare back and the damp velvet of his robe. Macy tightens her embrace and he answers her with a wordless rumble and the brush of his cheek against hers. The burn of his stubble roughened skin against her cheek is anything but unpleasant. 

A shiver travels down her spine when his lips graze the shell of her ear. She presses her own lips against the angle of his jaw and then again over what must be a sensitive spot near the nape of his neck. Her heart jumps at the sharp intake of breath at her small kiss and the way the arm she hadn’t noticed he’d curled around her back pulls her in that much closer. She buries her face in the curve between his neck and shoulder.

Macy feels his hand cover hers and his fingers twine with hers. As he draws her hand down she hears him speaking, voice low and rumbling. 

“Try, Macy. _Anything_ \- Whatever you want, please just _try_.”

Harry lays her hand down on the warmed plastic, presses until her hand molds to the device. Macy nods and purses her lips against his skin, never lifting her face from its hiding spot. The magic housed in the plastic rises and tickles at her palm. Her hand glides down the poorly sized, molded shaft and she’d swear it ripples under her touch. With every soft caress she can feel the strange magic reaching for more. 

Macy runs her fingertip delicately over the thin strip of plastic that forms the cock ring until it shudders and she can feel it stretch itself and loosen just the tiniest bit until it doesn’t bite quite so hard against the skin behind Harry’s scrotum. She gently moves the soft sack forward, easing the ring backwards where, though still rather snugly cinched, it doesn’t quite pinch at the delicate skin. Above her she hears Harry whisper a shaky thanks. 

The backs of her fingers drift up and down the tube in as soothing a motion as Macy can manage. She traces the edges of the ventilation slits at the sides and frowns at the feel of Harry’s skin bulging through. The plastic ripples again but Macy can tell this isn’t necessarily a good ripple. She cups the tip in her palm and strokes her fingers against the underside, scritching at the plastic as if it were a house cat badly in need of affection. Against Harry’s neck she makes shushing, comforting noises at both man and device and she can feel the tension in both ease.

It doesn’t take too long before the rise and fall of Harry’s chest under her chin no longer speaks of pain or even mild discomfort. He’s able to shift his hips up from the couch to pull at the edges of his robe. Macy pulls her hand away from him and tries to ignore the thin string of clear fluid that arcs from the tip of the plastic cage to her palm. She tries to close her hand quickly to hide the shiny smear on her palm but when she looks up Harry’s eyes are trained on her hand and his face is flushed red. He yanks the corner of his robe up and taking her hand Harry quickly swipes at her palm, sputtering out an apology with his eyes glued to his task.

“Hey, it’s normal, okay? Everything about _that thing?”_ Macy looks pointedly at the bright blue plastic in his lap, “Definitely weird; same as everything else in our lives. But this?” She brings up her other hand and covers his. She twines their fingers and guides them until their fingertips are pressing into her palm. “Totally normal. Sometimes you just can’t fight physiology, Harry. I get that, I promise.”

His acknowledgment of her words is quiet and half-hearted at best, but pushing him doesn’t seem the best idea right now. Instead she watches him pull his robe closed and jerk the belt into a tight knot.

When she moves to get up from the couch Harry straightens as well. Macy chokes down a snort at the image he makes sitting up so stiff and proper while sitting in just a robe on a ratty old sofa in a dusty, cluttered attic. Harry stands first before offering his hand to Macy. She takes his hand on a sigh and is subsequently pulled to her feet.

“You know we’re going to need to come at this a different way, right?” Macy asks him, thankfully before the silence can stretch out into a fully unbearable moment.

“Yes, I’ve been made _painfully_ aware.” 

The sardonic reply earns him the wry twist of her lips he’d aimed for. Now that he can breathe, his world no longer narrowed to the agony in his- undercarriage, so to speak, Harry’s mind races and picks through all that Macy had told him about the oddness of the magic involved with the accursed device.

“A more scholarly approach, then? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“We study it. Figure out what specific spell was used to curse the device and what the criteria are for releasing you from the curse. I mean there’s always a way out, right? Some sort of choice you have to make.”

Harry feels the blood draining from his face. But then she’s standing close with barely a handbreadth between them and her hands are slipping into his.

“If we know exactly what the nature, mechanism and focus of the curse is then we can manipulate it, bend it to our will, right? My advisor taught me that.” He snorts at her flattery-cum-gentle mockery. She in turn gives him an impish smile and a squeeze to his hands. “We just have to go slow and be deliberate, do our homework. But first,” she lets go of his hands and steps back and he mourns the loss of contact, “how about we get cleaned up and head to the command center?”

He tells her he’ll be right along and watches as she makes her way to the attic door. Though, just before she takes that first step down the stairs Harry calls out to her, “Thank you. For…” Harry trails off and gestures helplessly at himself. “I can’t imagine how I’d be managing or what I’d be doing.” He shudders at the possibilities, the horror of where, of _who_ he might have turned to. No, he would have let actual madness or dismemberment claim him, first. “But Macy, you should never have been called upon to do this, any of this. And for that I’m so very, very sorry.”

She shakes her head, a sad smile on her face that makes his chest ache.

"Don't be sorry, Harry. If our places were switched, you'd do the same for me, wouldn't you?"

"I- ah..." Harry's mouth works wordlessly as a vision of a naked Macy sprawled out on his sofa splashes unbidden and in _such_ vivid detail across his mind. 

**_Macy, naked but for his robe, sprawled across his sofa with his blanket barely clinging to her knee, the calf of her other leg shifting restlessly over his equally naked hip, heel bumping against the back of his thigh, his fingers working between her legs as he matched her moan for moan, his face pressed into the soft, golden skin over her ribs…_ **

"Yes," he croaks out. "Of course. Of course I would. _Absolutely_." The last word leaving him on a whisper. She nods and now her smile is one of such soft affection that his breath catches on a rush of equal parts longing and guilt. 

_That was clearly **not** what she meant, you old fool._

Macy descends down the stairwell leaving him to his riotous thoughts and the now familiar but just short of painful pinch as his arousal is quite literally restrained by the aptly name chastity cage.


	8. Chapter 8

It takes a moment before Harry feels like he can stand, much less make his way back down to his room. He could orb but the short walk affords him the opportunity to pass by a certain witch’s bedroom. And so, once relatively certain his legs will hold him, Harry pads down the narrow stairwell on a mission to get on with his day.

He’s halfway down the hall between Macy and Maggie’s room when a sound snags his attention. The pipes, ancient by his charges standards but in all likelihood not half as old as himself, groan as water rushes through them and Harry pauses, laying a hand against the papered wall. Harry clenches his back teeth and forces himself retract his hand. He pulls his robe tighter around himself, trying to shove down yet another wholly inappropriate vision.

**_Water cascading down her legs. The showerhead, cool and rumbling in his wet grip. His name echoing off the tiles…_ **

_Bloody hell, Harry, a truly pathetic letch, aren’t we?_

In his rush to escape his own thoughts Harry finds himself orbing the rest of the way to his bedroom. Even as his bare feet reconnect with the floor the world continues to swirl around his head, though not so much that he fears crumpling to the floor. But enough that he stays braced against his door, ostensibly contemplating what to wear for the day and _not_ for fear of crumpling to the floor in a pathetic heap, for at least a breath or two before proceeding to his mournfully small dressing room to collect his clothes.

Not quite willing to risk the potential of passing out in the bathroom or, god forbid, orbing into the _wrong_ bath, Harry makes his way on foot with mobile and garments in hand back up the stairs. His pace quickens when he reaches _that_ stretch of wall and he most definitely does not take note of the squeal of her taps turning and the tapering off of shower sounds.

When Harry finally reaches the relative safety of the family bath he pulls open his robe only to grimace. His impromptu foray into one of his favorite fantasies and subsequent ruminations on the goings on in the Manor’s other bath has left his encased member straining against the heavy plastic. But as per the design of such devices his penis is prevented from reaching a full erection. 

His arousal is still there but it rather feels more like background noise. But what is at the forefront of his mind is the mess he sees at the molded tip of the plastic shaft. The same kind of mess that he, himself, had cleaned from Macy’s hand. 

Harry takes a deep breath, trying to banish the image of her palm shining with his precum after having held him and... 

_Background noise, indeed._

But how to clean himself in his current predicament, that’s the question. For all his admittedly terse insistence on his familiarity with such devices, Harry still finds himself needing to do at least some cursory internet searches re: what to do when you find your damned cock in a locked in a chastity device against your will by a deluded and self-serving demon.

Tapping at his cell whilst waiting on the hot water to come through, Harry does a quick bit of research. He thumbs through the browser and pales at some the pictures that come up. Good heavens, could one really be made to fit into something _that_ small?? It couldn’t be any larger than the top of a salt shaker! And what could possibly be the purpose of that pin at the end… _oh good lord,_ **_no_** _._ Harry swallows against the rising of his gorge and quickly dismisses the tab of images. 

Focusing his attention on articles and personal accounts, Harry is somewhat more… comforted, if that was a word that could be used under these circumstances, by what he finds.

As steam begins to curl through the gaps of the shower curtain Harry reviews his mental shopping list, committing it to memory as best he can. He supposes the next step will be to research local establishments where he might make such purchases. Although, perhaps not at the Command Centre. And most certainly not when his charges might be within sight. 

But that is a quandary to be dealt with later. Right now, armed with a bit more information that he’d had not five minutes ago, Harry sheds his robe and steps under the spray.

-∵-

Despite his later start, it’s still Harry waiting at the kitchen table for the eldest Charmed One to make her way down. Odd that, especially given Macy’s generally strict adherence to schedules and near constant awareness of the time.

When Harry notes the muted sounds of her steps on the carpeted stairway he rushes to the sink. He rinses and put away his cup in double time and opts for orbing so that he can meet his charge at the bottom of the stairs. Harry’s fingers clench around the bottommost baluster as he fights to hide a brief wave of dizziness. 

“Shall we?” Harry says, offering his arm to Macy. 

She takes said arm with a smile and Harry’s eyes shut only briefly as the warm, fresh scent of her wafts over him. But when he straightens in preparation to orb Macy lays her other hand against his shoulder, causing him to pause. Harry looks down, searching her face for any sign of what could be bothering her but all he sees is an easy brightness and her lips still curved in that smile. A smile so soft and so close and _so damned tempting._

Harry clears his throat.

“It looks like such a nice day out there, Harry. How about we just walk?”

Harry’s mouth works but ultimately no words are forthcoming. Instead he nods and after opening the door to her, her arm in his, Harry follows where his witch leads.

-∵-

When the pair arrive at Safe Space Harry is struck by the contrast between the somewhat mundane hustle and bustle of the communal workspace versus the stress and frankly, _horrors_ that had taken place in their own home. And yet, Harry thinks to himself, he’d still almost rather be back there, pain and humiliation be damned, if it meant being held as he’d been and having those hands once again skimming over his-

“Good morning, Visionaries!”

Harry’s attention snaps to the present as Swan greets Macy warmly with her customarily beaming smile as Macy crosses Safe Space’s threshold. Macy returns the greeting with barely hidden amusement at the assistant managers overly bright enthusiasm. Harry, on the other hand, receives the usual, somewhat frosty ‘Alex’ and a curt nod from the ordinarily genial manager before she returns her attentions to his understandably more favored companion.

Although he’s not quite sure what he did to earn the small woman’s ire, Harry chooses not to delve any further as he suspects the origins may lay in yet another poor decision he’d made in regards to a certain demon.

Thankfully, Swan must have other duties to attend to as she leaves them not long after their arrival.

Down in the Command Center the hours pass quickly and without much fanfare. Maggie and Mel spend most of their day above ground and Harry and Macy below seeing to their respective responsibilities.

As the lunch hour draws near, Mel and Maggie descend noisily down the metal staircase, arms laden with bags of food. Harry happily unburdens him and asks after their day so far with forced brightness. He ignores the looks they trade as he lays out their orders.

“You alright, Harry?” they ask, genuine worry tingeing their voices. 

Rather than admit to the unseemly jealousy that’s been taking up far too much of his thoughts since the moment Macy had left to join Julian for lunch, Harry waves off their concerns entirely and changes the subject. There will be consequences, he knows. And yet at this moment he would do anything to distract himself from thoughts of Macy and _her beau_ and any possible assignations that might be taking place above their heads.

-∵-

Macy’s ‘lunch’ with Julian lasts for all of twenty minutes. They’re barely seated at a nearby Korean-Mexican restaurant when he’s standing up again with his phone in one hand and the other hand pressing a sleek, no doubt ‘state-of-the-art’ device into his ear. 

He mouths to her to go ahead and order them anything, which Macy absolutely does. Although, maybe she doesn’t really order him anything at all. It’s only been a couple of months but by now she knows that in ten more minutes the handsome billionaire is going to come back, still on his phone and wearing an apologetic face. He’ll be asking her for a rain check while assuring her that lunch is ‘already taken care of.’ Because of course he’s leaving and of course he’s paid for all the food he won’t be eating, if he doesn’t in fact already own the entire restaurant.

Everything transpires exactly as Macy predicts and she has to put in a real effort to not laugh out loud when Julian presses a quick kiss to her lips before walking out the door. Dabbing her napkin absentmindedly at her lips, Macy can’t help but think that if Maggie were here she’d be impressed.

In the relative silence of the empty restaurant, Macy enjoys the peace and her beef bulgogi tacos, all thoughts of very busy billionaires having evaporated the minute Julian was out of sight. But far from staying idle, Macy’s ever churning mind turns its attentions to something, or rather someone else entirely. 

She knows she should be feeling something like shame or guilt in light of this mornings...events. Even now her face heats as she recalls the feel of his damp back against her arm and the pounding of his pulse against her lips as she tried to calm him and _that thing_ down. 

But there is no guilt and certainly no shame. And more to the point, she knows with an absolute certainty that she would do all of it again in a literal heartbeat if Harry needed her to. That alone means something and Macy knows it’s not something she can hide from anymore. So now, as much as it might fill her with dread, Macy knows it’s time to start weighing her options and make some real decisions.

As she finishes the last little bowl of condiments Macy pulls out her phone and scrolls through her phone’s browser, going back to previously bookmarked pages. Across the street a playful yet tasteful, neon sign winks at her from through the restaurant’s bay windows. Decisions about billionaires and the safety of the Command Center aside, at the very least Macy knows what her very next stop will be.


	9. Chapter 9

What Macy didn’t expect when she got back from her extended lunch break (although she really, probably should have) was to be pulled straight into a mission that would take her entire family and herself clear to the other side of the globe. She’d barely had a moment to set down the canvas bags containing her purchases before Maggie had grabbed her hand and they were both running headlong through a portal to god knew where.

Malaysia, it had turned out. A beautiful, lush and _muddy_ Malaysian swampland that was at that moment experiencing a damn torrential downpour. But they had found the endangered witches and aided them in their quest to exorcise an entire float of demonically possessed crocodiles. And following a stop to collect their things from the Command Center the four had found themselves standing on the porch of their invisible home arguing about who got to shower first.

-∵-

A good twenty minutes after finally getting the family _into_ the house, Macy stands in her closest trying not to think about the looks her sisters had given her when she'd suggested Harry use her shower. She'd only done it because Maggie and Mel hadn't paused to take a breath in their bickering over the shower since the minute they'd all landed back at the command center.

Macy sighs and peeks out at the poor guy currently standing shoeless in the middle of her room, picking at the grimy buttons of his ruined shirt. Out of the four of them, Harry was the only one who was caked in mud, literally from head to toe. Of course she wasn’t going to make him wait for the two girls to shower before he got a chance to get cleaned up. Not when there was another perfectly good shower in he could use. 

But the second Macy had actually invited Harry to use said shower Maggie and Mel had given her a Look™. Almost immediately, she’d felt the most intense urge to defend herself, despite how obviously practical her suggestion should have been to everyone. The man was filthy and Macy’s room had the only other shower in the house! It was the only thing that made sense! 

Macy had been mentally preparing her arguments when she’d glanced over at Harry. He had just looked so tired and bedraggled, barely listening to the conversation happening right in front of him. One look at the man and Macy’s plan of action was solidified. Choosing to ignore her sisters altogether, she’d steered their whitelighter up the stairs without another word and left Maggie and Mel to get back to their bickering.

When Macy emerges from her closet with a large, plastic bin in hand she hears Harry swearing as his hand pluck at the fly of his slacks. _Oh god, what now?_ Macy wonders, her heart racing with worry.

“What’s wrong?”

Macy drops the bin on the floor and it clatters hollowly as she rushes to his side. Her hands are already fluttering at his belt and skimming over space between his thighs as she tries to sense any distress in the plastic thing.

“Are you hurt, Harry? Is it the device?” 

Dammit, she hadn’t even thought what wading through all that swamp water might do to the temperamental thing. Her fingers pull at his belt buckle and it’s only when she’s got it open and her fingers are sliding down the zipper that his hands come to rest on hers.

“I’m fine. _We_ are fine,” he corrects himself with a derisive snort. “Didn’t mean to worry you. Just was having a bit of trouble getting this damned thing undone.”

“Mind if I lend a hand?” she asks, looking him in the eye and waiting for him to say yea or nay to the offer.

There are probably other things he should say and better responses he could give her but in the end Harry simply pulls his hands away from hers, allowing her to continue working on his trousers. Meanwhile, Harry does his best to focus all his attention at unbuttoning his uncooperative cuffs, trying to ignore the feel of Macy’s fingers against the sensitive skin of his abdomen as she pushes at his waistband until the entire garment drops to the floor. They’d been here before and just as then unruly thoughts swirl about in his head.

She’s crouched down by his knee and tapping at his leg for him to step out of the legs of his trousers when he hears her suck in a breath. Harry’s eyes close and his head falls back as he realizes what she’s just seen.

"Harry! You said you weren't hurt!"

"It's just a scratch. It will heal."

"Harry Greenwood," she starts, feeling her temper begin to thin. "When I ask you if you're hurt-I swear to god..."

"Now, Macy…” he says hands rising up as if that could actually ward off her fury. “It’s really not so bad. Just a scratch. I barely feel it.”

“It’s a gash, Harry! Shit- It’s as long as my hand and- Oh god, that looks deep. You need to clean that up now.”

Macy rises to her feet and the look on her face sends an icy thrill down Harry’s spine. She pulls his raised hands down silently fuming, works open the buttons at his wrists. Where once he'd told himself her dark glare didn't frighten him, having her ire turned fully towards him is another matter altogether.

“Macy," he says, trying for a mollifying tone. "A bit of meditation and a few hours kip and it'll be gone like it never happened. Even as is, I’m in no danger of infection or anything like that. Really, it's nothing to be so concerned about."

" _Nothing_ to be _concerned_ about?"

Harry swallows.

She turns away from him and stalks over to where he'd laid his muddy shoes by her door. She brings them over and with a force he feels in his bones she slamming them into the bin. His muddied trousers soon follow and then he's practically hopping as she strips him of his socks before tossing those into the bin as well. All the while heated and, he'll admit later, well-deserved censure spills from her lips.

"I _am_ concerned. When will you get it through that thick, magical, _English_ skull of yours that you are part of this family. You matter to us. **_Shirt_** ," she commands mid-tirade. Harry complies with all due haste, pulling the garment from his shoulders and placing it in her waiting hand. He tries not to wince when she throws it into the bin. "And you getting hurt is _absolutely_ something that concerns me. I don't give a crap how fast you heal. That's not the point. **_Undershirt_**. When you get hurt- When I ask you if you're hurt, you _don't fucking lie to me._ "

Having apparently finished both her diatribe and the undressing of him, Macy leaves Harry standing in the middle of her room, contrite and unclothed save for his y-fronts. Harry watches with mouth judiciously buttoned shut as Macy fetches a dark, canvas bag and dumps the contents onto her bed, a stormy air still swirling about her.

His curiosity is piqued as she spreads the jumble of bottles and other plastic wrapped items across the bedspread. But rather than ask after them he decides an apology is most probably the better thing to start with.

"I'm sorry."

"You are? Really?" she snorts, continuing to sort the items. Harry closes his eyes against a wave of guilt. He wants to touch her, to turn her towards him so he can say what he needs to say to her face. But his hands are filthy and so he opts for closeness in lieu of contact.

"I am,” he says quietly as he hovers nervously just a few inches behind her. “I knew the gash was there and even though I knew that's not exactly what you’d been asking after just then, I still should have told you. Probably even earlier, at that."

"It's what you would have wanted if Maggie, Mel, or I were hurt."

"Yes, I know."

"Because...?"

"Because I care for you all and your health and safety matters to me a great deal. I would never under any circumstance want you to hide from me your being hurt."

At that he sees her shoulders sag and she turns to face him. Relief floods him and Harry’s fingers itch to touch her. He wants to pull her close so he can reiterate his apology and assure her of how much he understands the folly in his actions.

When Harry catches sight of her hand rising to his face a voice barks at him to tell her to stop. He's filthy and she really ought not be touching him. He knows he should say so but instead, Harry finds that all he can do when her palm molds to the curve of his cheek is lean heavily into her touch.

"Honesty and trust, Harry. That's all we need from you. Just trust that this family loves you and be honest with us. Can you do that? Can you try?"

Harry nods, a lump forming in his throat. A lump he swallows hard against so he can answer her.

"I- Yes. Yes, of course I can. I _will_."

"Alright," she says, hand falling from his cheek only to slip into his own hand and give it a tug. "C’mere, I want to show you a few things I got for you today. Did you know there’s a new erotic shop that opened up across from the Korean taco place on Rezanof Ave?"

“I’m sorry, a _what??”_


	10. Chapter 10

She laughs at his outburst and Harry feels more of the tension of the last few, heated minutes slip away. Macy recounts her impromptu visit to a store apparently called The Spread and Harry stands at her side listening intently. 

She releases his hand to point out the objects on her bed and the thought occurs to him that propriety would have him taking at the very least half a step. And yet he doesn’t move. They’d both been subject to a tropical deluge and yet somehow her hair still retains a trace of its usual, comforting fragrance. That, among other more dangerous things he’s not quite ready to acknowledge, keeps Harry locked in her orbit.

He tries not to think of what her bo–Harry snorted at the word, that man was well into his forties if he was a day– _significant other_ may have thought of Macy’s post-lunch outing. Perhaps Julian had thought the purchases were to be enjoyed by the both of them. Harry works to soften the clenching of his jaw and forcibly turns his thoughts back to Macy’s presentation.

“So the shop manager told me you should be able to get a liquid soap in there easily enough if you’re, um, relaxed and you can use these,” she holds up the sterile, long handled swabs, “to help clear out any… discharge. Just, obviously, be careful about poking yourself and not snapping the handles.”

“And the razors? No, no,” he interrupts himself, raising a hand to forestall her reply. “I apologize. Self-explanatory.”

“You don’t have to if it’s not bothering you.”

“But?” Harry asks, the word slipping past his lips despite his knowing full well how unbearably awkward continuing on this particular topic will be. Harry clamps down on a swear. Why was he doing this to himself? Why could he never leave well enough alone?

“But I was just thinking,” she pauses, most likely trying to find a more politic way of characterizing his woefully neglected grooming that she had no doubt noticed over the past day or so. 

Harry had always prided himself in the careful, sometimes fastidious, maintenance of his person. From his choice in attire -neat, serviceable, and always in step with the fashion of the day and circumstances- to what lay beneath, tidy, hygienic and perhaps with an eye towards a certain meticulous, if not pristine aesthetic.

However, certain aspects of his personal regimen had necessarily fallen to the wayside owing to the upheavals in his and his charges’ lives. And to Harry’s particular chagrin what Macy had been forced to see was the mortifyingly thick and decidedly unkempt end result.

“…get snagged.”

Harry snaps back to the present and he nods in agreement to heaven knows what. Macy smiles and Harry breathes out a sigh of relief that yet another moment of inattention has gone unnoticed. _Blast it, Harry_ **_focus_** _._

“And this?” Harry says quickly, desperate to move on. 

His fingers settle on the next item, a large glass bottle filled with a clear fluid. He lifts and turns it in his hand, frowning as he finds no labels or discernible markings.

“Lubrication. It’s a silicone based lube. The details are on the bottom for discretion’s sake.” Harry carefully upends the bottle and there it is, a small discreet label, just as she’s said. “The manager said it would help with the discomfort. You can apply it around the ring part and use the swabs to get some down along the shaft. Just not directly on your glans–um, you know, the tip?”

“Ah, yes, I’d read several articles that recommended that as well.”

“Of course you did,” she says softly, cocking her head to look back at him. An affectionate, knowing smile graces her lips and he wishes… “Harry, you just wouldn’t be you if you _didn’t_ do your own research. So, want to tell me what _you_ found in the literature, Professor Greenwood?”

Harry bites the inside of his lip and tries not to duck his head at the compliment she’s couched in her gentle ribbing. It’s not too difficult he finds, unable as he is to tear his gaze away from her smiling eyes. 

He tells her of the articles he’s read, both the helpful and the ridiculously unhelpful. In a purposefully wry tone Harry describes at length his difficulties in teasing out the reputable, academic literature on the topic of ‘cock cages’ from that which was simply there for pornographic titillation. And just as he’d meant it to, his tale of ‘woe’ elicits first a snort and then that wonderfully unique laugh of hers. 

For a brief, shining moment Harry feels as though they’ve been transported back to Hilltowne. No billionaire beaus or missing powers or the humiliating consequences of Harry’s petty jealousies and most recent poor judgment of character. Just an afternoon sitting in his office sharing a brew and trading thoughts on Maggie’s latest Kappa escapades, anything other than discussing how best to keep Harry’s penis clean and relatively undamaged whilst forcibly ensconced in a bloody piece of enchanted plastic.

The moment doesn’t last long, however, as the aforementioned enchanted plastic device chooses that moment to remind Harry, in no uncertain terms, of its presence.

-∵-

Macy’s head snaps up and she spins to face her whitelighter, the light mood swept away by Harry’s hiss of pain. Her heart hammers as she looks down, first at his groin and then craning around him to glance at his injured leg. She moves to kneel, hoping to get a better look at either when Harry’s hands land on her waist, forestalling her moments.

“Wait. Macy, just wait,” the words spilling out of him on a rushed breath. His fingers flex over her ribs and Macy waits, giving Harry a moment to collect himself.

“Harry?” she prods him quietly, laying a hand against his clammy cheek. Dammit, here he’d been standing practically naked after an evening wading through a swamp. She shouldn’t have taken so long with her damn ‘show and tell’. Macy glances at her bathroom door; he needed to warm up.

“I think it might be time I went and showered,” he breathes out as if reading her thoughts. “I suspect this plastic monstrosity will not have much more patience with me, otherwise.”

“Wait, how do you know that? Is it letting you feel its magic? Communicating directly? Is it telling you what it wants? What it is?”

Macy takes a breath and tries to rein in the stampede of questions building inside her. Macy eases them both around and helps Harry take a few slow steps towards the bathroom.

“No, nothing like that. Rather-”

Harry pauses mid-step, sucking a breath in through his teeth and Macy could swear her heart skips a beat. 

“What is it?!”

Harry hand shoots out to brace against the doorjamb and in a flash to rival his orbing Macy slips under his arm to stand in front of him. She tells him to hold on and he does just, lifting his other hand to clutch at the opposite jamb. 

Harry’s eyes are closed and Macy notes the rise and fall of his shoulders. Judging by Harry’s uncomfortable but not outright pained expression, whatever the little monster is doing to her whitelighter, at the very least it’s not as bad as this morning with the teeth. _God, was that really only just this morning?_

A quiet grunt snaps Macy back to the present. She slides her palm down the side of his ribs and when Harry squirms Macy whispers an apology against his ear. 

“Tell me what’s happening, Harry.”

“I could feel it reacting to my having to wade into the swa– _oh lord_ –swamp. I don’t believe it liked that much. But it seemed as though it might’ve be easing up a bit once I started to undress. More so as we were speaking about showering. My showering, that is. On my own– _by myself_ , rather,” Harry pauses and Macy can hear him draw in a long breath through his nose. “But I suppose now I’ve taken too long and it may have gone and lost its patience with me– _bollocks_.”

Without another thought Macy drops a hand between them and cradles his caged and beleaguered member. Despite Harry’s denial of sensing any of the device’s magic, the moment her hand closes around it she can feel, the even through the fabric of Harry’s underwear, a tired kind of petulance radiating from the thing. She runs her thumb down the length of the shaft and Harry’s head drops heavily against her shoulder.

“Macy…”

She hates hearing her name said in such a miserable and pleading tone.

“Not enough?” she asks, pretty much already knowing the answer. The way its magic bristles, even as she strokes it, the device seems to be giving no indication of being the least bit mollified. Harry shakes his head against her shoulder and she curls her fingers over the elastic band of Harry’s boxer briefs, pausing there until he indicates his readiness.

Macy presses her lips to the hair just behind his ear before sliding down to the tile floor. She eases the damp briefs down Harry’s mud streaked legs, taking extra care to avoid both the device and the admittedly already less angry, but no less sizable looking gash on his leg. As they’d done with his slacks, she taps at his legs, freeing him from the soiled garments. The grimy state of his skin ~~is the only thing~~ and the fact that _it would be insanely inappropriate_ keeps Macy from pressing a kiss just above his knee in approval.

Leaving his briefs hanging over the edge of her hamper, Macy takes a quick moment to look up at her whitelighter. She blows out a shaky breath and pushes down more inappropriate urges as she rises back up to her feet, readying herself to once again do what needs to be done. Harry, with hands still gripping the doorjamb, has taken to breathing like he, too, is girding himself for what comes next.

Stepping in close, Macy gently closes her hand around the disgruntled torture device while keeping her touch featherlight. Harry’s head returns to its place against her shoulder. She leans the side of her head against his and at the same time she feels just the smallest fraction of the device’s tension ease Harry releases a long breath that flows over the front of Macy’s blouse. 

Her hand drifts under him as she runs her finger along the base ring. She adjusts the snug ring to sit a little further back behind his sack and Harry hums appreciatively.

“Better, huh?”

Harry nods in the affirmative, a muffled hybrid of a hum and a chuckle rumbling from his chest. He spares only the briefest thought to how well she already knows his body. 

His eyes are closed and her hand remains a comforting presence against both his skin and the plastic beast when he hears the squealing of the taps turning. Right, showering. That’s what he’s meant to be doing. Yet even having just been reminded of the consequences of provoking the device’s ire Harry finds himself reluctant to step away. 

For once, her touch doesn’t elicit so much a twitch in his trapped member as it does a kind of quiet warmth that banishes the chill of his damp skin. If he could put his arms around her in a proper embrace, Harry could be content to stand with her like this for the next hour or so.

They stand there for a minute or two, her fingers continue to trace round the ring until she’s come back around to the top. He can feel the delicate bones of her knuckles skating over his pubis. Harry tries to suppress the shiver that arises when he both feels and hears a soft rasping as her fingers pass over the top of the ring and through the unruly thatch of hair. But he’s about as unsuccessful at that as he is at stopping the flush he can feel creeping up his neck.

“It is a bit unseemly, isn’t it? I must confess, this is not my usual state. I know probably should’ve given it a proper trim ages ago but the past few weeks have been... I promise you, I’m not usually so inattentive to grooming and-”

“Harry,” Macy chides. “I was serious earlier, you only need to trim it if it’s bothering you by getting snagged or making it hard to stay clean. Other than that, it, um, looks fine. You look fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong or _unseemly_ about just going _au naturel_ ," she tells him with a teasing grin that he can’t help but roll his eyes at.

With that she pulls her hand away from him, her fingers inadvertently dragging through the hair that trails upwards towards his belly. And thankfully, before he’s able to utter a protest that would no doubt have plagued him with never ending embarrassment later, Macy tugs him fully into the now steam filled bathroom.

“Get in the shower, Harry, before that thing decides it’s still mad at you. I don’t think either one of us wants to be standing here doing this all night.”

 _And entire night in the arms of the brilliant Macy Vaughn as she holds and caresses my–? Yes, love, perish the very thought._ Harry bites down on the wry response and keeps his face as neutral as possible, offering instead a sheepish nod.

“I’ll get your things, just get in and go warm up, already.”

Harry does as instructed and steps beneath the strong spray of Macy’s shower. The water is hot and soothing as it sluices over his head and down his chest. Immediately there is an easing of the pressure around his privates and his moan of relief echoes off of the tiled walls.

At the sound of her footsteps Harry turns his head to see Macy re-enter the bathroom. He watches her silently through the foggy glass as she goes about laying his soaps, swabs and all the other accouterments she’s procured for him on a small, wheeled table that she rolls next to the shower door. He catches her eye and her shoulders rise in a small shrug as she smiles at him. 

Harry returns her smile and mouths a silent _'thank you’,_ marveling at the bizarre and seeming domesticity of it all. As if they were in some alternate reality where he did willingly allow himself to be so encased and this task of keeping himself clean wasn’t his alone. Where in mere moments he would be joined by his partner and her delicate hands would grant him temporary freedom (and possibly more, oh god, how he would _beg_ for more) as they stood together under the cascading water.

Reaching out to pluck the soap from the table, Harry wishes, and not nearly for the first time-since before they’d even left Hilltowne, that all could be exactly as it outwardly appeared.


	11. Chapter 11

Somewhere in one of the psych textbooks that Ray Vera dropped off for Maggie, there’s apparently a recommendation for regressing back to things one might have found enjoyable in childhood as a means of relaxing and taking a step back from the stressors of adulthood. A recommendation that Maggie had mentioned just this afternoon during their lunch break. 

_“A movie night, just like mom and Mel and I used to have,”_ Maggie had said as she’d plucked the wrappers and bags from the witchboard table to be thrown away upstairs. Smiling fondly, Macy had, in turn, shared how she and her own father had done the same whenever she’d been home on breaks. 

So it’s hardly a surprise that, at this very moment, the Power of Four–as Macy likes to think of them–are all sitting in the dark of the attic, ensconced on the various seats and enjoying a relaxing ‘night in at the movies’.

And it absolutely would be relaxing if it weren’t for the small fact that Macy is currently having the hardest, damn time keeping her hands to herself. She’s already sitting kind of close to Harry and resisting the urge to curl up against him is hard enough. But having to endure any more probing and sometimes outright judgey questions from her sisters keeps her maintaining a _polite_ distance.

Dammit, she really should have taken the armchair that Maggie is currently curled up in and let both her sisters share the sofa with Harry. But Maggie had already settled herself in the chair by the time Macy had gotten the sheet they were projecting their movie on tacked onto the attic’s beams using both her powers and a little spellwork. When she had turned around Mel had stretched out over one end of the couch while Harry had installed himself in the corner of the other. Macy had had no other choice but to wedge herself between her sister’s feet and Harry’s hip.

-∵-

It certainly isn’t that he dislikes spending time with all his charges gathered. It isn’t that at all. Under any other circumstances a movie night, a family dinner, or even a quiet evening with everyone on the same floor engaged in their own quiet activities would be just the sort of domestic bliss that Harry has come to rely on for peace of mind. For as proud as he is to know that the three women that claim him as family are growing ever more powerful and ever more practised in the magical arts, well-equipped warriors against the dangers of the supernatural world, there’s just something about knowing that his charges are all home, happy, and safe that calms him like nothing else.

However… A tendril of guilt coils in Harry’s gut that there even is a ‘however’. _Preferring the company of one of your charges over the others? That kind of favoritism could be disastrous, Mr. Greenwood,_ a voice not unlike the Elder that had trained him, whispers in the back of his mind.

 **_However_ ** , Harry thinks to himself, forcefully shoving aside the reproachful voice. Given the current circumstances, could he really be faulted for the few additions to his daily routine? Especially those that seemed to alleviate the emotional stress and physical pains caused by the curse laid upon him? If anything, his few stolen moments with Macy on this very sofa _(alone, dammit)_ leave him in a significantly better frame of mind and physical condition to aid and protect his charges than not.

Were it not for Maggie insisting upon this impromptu ‘movie night’ as a means of cheering up her family, Harry would right now be enjoying the relative quiet of the attic. He would only just be settling onto the sofa, belly full of the meal he had prepared for the lot of them and awaiting the soft, warm weight of her to settle against his side. 

To position them more comfortably Harry’s arm would slide low around her back and she would gamely allow him to tug her in closer. Perhaps his clumsy jostling would even earn him a teasing laugh as she suggests he’s mistaken her for a ragdoll. He would apologise, of course, and she, in turn, would shush him as she took over the matter of arranging herself in his arms. 

And as she finally laid her head against his shoulder, the comforting scents of dish soap and the rose water in her hair would fill his lungs. He would allow himself a half instant or two to be distracted by the feel and smell of her surrounding him before responding to her hand rubbing a gentle circle over his sternum. 

She would be asking him if he was in much pain and if he needed any help undoing his flies to which he would snort out a quick chuckle and try to cover for his distraction with some nonsense about long days poring over books and training with her sisters. All the while Macy would be steadying the fabric of his trousers as he undid the buttons and hook before he manages to pull the zipper down. 

She would ask him about his training regimen with Mel and the spell Maggie had been complaining about perfecting, as with now practiced ease she and Harry manoeuvered his trousers and underpants down only just far enough to free him or rather the ornery, plastic beast encasing him from its confines. 

The blanket currently in use by Mel would be draped over both he and Macy, lest an unexpected visitor happened upon them as Macy tended to the device. Then, finally ensconced in what had come to feel like their own little, private island escape, Harry would let himself bask in their quiet conversation and Macy’s gentle ministrations.

Harry shifts on the sofa as the image of Macy’s hand slipping between his legs and jostling him ever so gently presents itself a bit too vividly. The device, presumably sullen from their missed ‘appointment’ bears down churlishly just as his member vainly seeks to respond to Harry’s musings. Harry winces. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Macy turning to look at him. He forces his attention back to the ridiculous film playing out before them. A strange, but familiar hum sounds ever more loudly out of the little speaker sitting on the table. Harry’s eyes widen as he takes in the scene...

**_...OH GOOD HEAVENS!!_ **

-∵-

She’s seen this movie before but it’s still a great pick on Maggie’s part. It’s ridiculous but enthralling nonetheless. Hidden princesses (or is she a queen, Macy can never get that straight), werewolves on rollerblades and bees, lots and lots of…

Oh shit, _bees_.

The speaker emits a tinny buzz and the woman on screen absently flicks a hand over her head as two men tussle in an overgrown yard.

Macy snaps her gaze over to her right but thankfully the one person she would expect to be having trouble with this scene doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to the movie at all. It’s a little unusual, because as much as Harry grouses about the ‘nonsense’ Macy and her sisters like to indulge in, Macy has watched enough episodes of Heaven’s Vice and the like with him on this very couch to know he loves the ‘nonsense’ just as much as they do.

And yet from the look on Harry’s face, the way he’s trying to hide a grimace, Macy can tell that _something_ is going on with him. He moves and adjusts his position on the sofa ever so slightly and then shifts again.

“You okay?” she asks him, laying a hand on his leg. If they’d been alone, well, first of all, they’d be fast-forwarding through this weird little scene at the first flicker of a bug across the screen. Even for her, it’s a little too reminiscent of the night they dealt with the scythe. But more importantly, if they’d been without the company of her sisters, Macy would be doing much more than just tapping at his knee and mouthing her question at him.

It’s been over a week since she and Harry started their research into the exact nature of the cursed chastity cage. And for all the awkwardness at the beginning, their days have now settled into a comfortable rhythm.

As to their routine, it’s not a complicated one: the day spent in the command center working on their individual projects and spells, dinner at home with her sisters, then a little conversation on the attic couch with just Harry and herself. Just a few minutes to unwind a little, to check in with each other about things more sensitive in nature and most importantly to check in with Harry’s temperamental ‘companion’. Together they work to get it (and Harry, honestly) settled and soothed before heading off to Macy’s bedroom to continue their personal research. It’s not complicated at all but it is something she finds herself really missing when life, or in this case her little sister, sees fit to disrupt it.

She can almost understand the attention the device seems to itch for after a particularly long day, as oddly enough there are times when it seems to match her own almost-cravings for their ‘quiet time’. It’s more than the curious thrill she sometimes gets at just the sound of his voice rumbling under her cheek or the way something in her chest jumps in reaction to the twitch in his muscles when her fingers accidentally skim over a sensitive spot between his hair-roughened thighs.

After a day of rushing after and tending to imperiled witches, practicing new spells, and dealing with very sweet but very busy billionaires, maybe just having a friend to hold onto and talk about her day with was just what a witch needed to shake off the uncomfortable parts of her day.

And speaking of uncomfortable... Macy gives the top of Harry’s leg a soft squeeze when after a moment he still hasn’t answered her question. 

In the relative dark, she doesn’t imagine her sisters can see what she’s doing but she takes a quick glance at them just the same. Sure that their attentions are still on the movie, Macy slides her hand down the outside of Harry’s thigh, pressing into the tense muscle before curving her fingers over his knee. 

With a little more privacy and his permission she’d be outright cupping him. With her hand pressed over the hard plastic she’d be able to feel out the mood of the cage and calm it down if necessary. And even if it wasn’t the cage causing him pain, she’d like to think that at least she’d be able to get him to tell her what _was_ bothering him.

“Harry?” 

He turns his head to her and Macy sees his eyes flick briefly to the bed sheet-turned-screen. The buzzing sound from the little Bluetooth speaker reaches a crescendo just as-

The sofa rocks violently as Harry jolts back against it before scrambling to his feet. Mel yelps and grabs hold of the carved edge but thankfully is not tossed from her seat.

Maggie leaps from her chair and dives for the laptop on the coffee table. There’s a loud **_THWAP!_ ** and the picture on the sheet freezes.

“Whoops!” Maggie says brightly as she taps at her computer screen. The movie leaps forward to a different scene before pausing again.

Macy is torn between laughing and pulling their poor whitelighter back down the couch for a quick hug as she watches him lift his nose and fuss at his shirt, obviously searching for his momentarily lost dignity.

“Apologies, ladies,” Harry sniffs, offering a short bow to Mel and herself. “Just caught me a bit off guard.”

Mel shrugs and quirks a sympathetic smile at him, “You’re good, Harry. We’re just gonna skip that part. Nothing you won’t get later from context.”

But a glance at Harry tells Macy he’s not going to be up for anymore of the movie, regardless.

“Hey guys, Harry and I are gonna get us some snacks,” Macy offers gently as she stands to join Harry, looking to Mel who nods and Maggie who shrugs apologetically. “Unpause the movie, I’ve got it practically memorized, anyways.” The last part is admittedly a fib that she adds when Harry opens his mouth to protest. “I won’t have any trouble catching up when I get back.” 

Macy hears her sisters murmur in response and threads her arm through Harry’s. She tugs him towards the attic door and he follows her lead without even the slightest hint of resistance.

-∵-

He’s loath to let her go, but Harry finds he must if they’re to descend the narrow stairwell leading out of the attic. His slight fatigue and the discomfort in his nether parts notwithstanding, Harry pulls them to a halt just in front of the attic door. At her look of confusion, he tugs Macy closer against him and orbs them directly to the kitchen.

“Harry! _Shit._ ”

Macy hastily slides her arms around him as Harry wobbles a tad bit more than his usual upon their arrival. For the most infinitesimal of moments, Harry considers stepping out of her reach before common sense prevails. He lets Macy guide him to the nearest chair but stills her with a hand against her hip before she can sink down to kneel before him.

“How bad is it?”

“Not actually bad at all, I’m just a bit tired,” he replies with his forehead pressed against her ribs. The deep, if somewhat shaky breaths she can probably feel through her blouse no doubt give lie to his words. She pauses but otherwise does not speak. He mutters an apology and the truth. With a certain amount of relief Harry sags against her when he feels her hand coming to rest on atop his head.

An appreciative hum escapes his throat as her fingers scrape through his hair. He goes quiet for a long moment after that and after a while her thumb taps expectantly against the back of his neck, he suspects for his failure to respond to a query.

“Harry?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you still want that tea?”

_What tea? When had they been talking about tea?_

Every last fibre in his body demands he say ‘yes’ but all that comes out is a long, tired sigh. He feels the muscles of her belly flutter and her fingers twitch in his hair. The fabric into which he has his face pressed grows damp with his breath and he draws back to offer yet another apology. He looks up at her, trying to keep his eyes from sliding shut as her hand moves to lay against his cheek.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

“I would _never_ say ‘no’ to a cuppa,” he tries to huff out indignantly even as his eyes slide back closed at the feel of Macy’s thumb running over the ridge of his cheek.

“You won’t even be awake by the time the kettle’s done boiling.”

“Will so,” Harry mutters defensively. “Just use the electric one.”

“How about I use the microwave, instead? That'll be even faster.”

At that Harry’s eyes snap open. She wouldn't dare! But when he looks up Macy’s eyes are dancing with impish delight. Harry's own eyes narrow and he barely reins in his temptation to pinch his mischievous witch’s arse. That was _unkind._

A low, quick buzz pierces the quiet of the kitchen. With more than a little reluctance Harry relinquishes the hold he hadn’t realised he’d had on Macy’s hips, allowing her to step back and pull her phone from a pocket.

“I’ve kept you from sister-bonding time,” Harry pronounces guiltily. Silently, he takes an internal survey of his aches and pains before rising gingerly to his feet. “Your sisters are probably wondering about your absence.”

“Sisters- _and-Harry_ -bonding time,” she corrects him. “But it’s fine, Maggie’s just asking for some water when I get back. She said there’s no hurry.”

“Still, I should let you get back to the movie. The story seems quite…inventive, lively. Excepting the bees, of course.” He sees the corner of her mouth lift and in turn he rolls his eyes.

She steps back up to him and runs her hand down his arm. “We can watch it again later, Harry,” she promises. “Without the bee part, _of course_.” She’s teasing him, he knows but he pays it no mind. Her proximity acting once again like an intoxicant designed specifically for him, Harry pulls in a deep breath through his nose. Losing himself momentarily in the faint rosewater scent wafting towards him, he almost misses her next words.

“How does this sound: I’ll go back up and finish the movie with Maggie and Mel and you can use my shower in peace. Have yourself a nice, long and _hot_ shower,” she says, her suggestion offered in a low voice he knows she doesn’t mean to be as beguiling, as _seductive_ as it sounds. 

Still, an image flits through his mind and he wonders what those words would feel like with his lips against her throat. What it would be like to counter her offer with another, _Leave your sisters to their movie. Come with me, instead._

“-get that thing to relax and leave you alone enough so you can get some sleep. What do you think? Harry?”

“Yes, I suppose that would be nice,” Harry concedes, pushing his wayward thoughts aside. She flashes him with a triumphant smile that he shakes his head at. Soon enough her hands are turning him to face the hallway and he’s being gently pushed out of the kitchen.

-∵-

The movie finally ends and there’s a collective groan as the sisters note the time. It’s far later than any of them expected it to be, probably due to several bathroom breaks, the snack mission and just the general need to pause the movie at a few points to ask, _who exactly are these people again?_ But still, despite the late hour, everyone agrees that Maggie’s choices in activities and film were just what the sisters needed.

As Macy follows her sisters down out of the attic she glances down at her phone and frowns.

She supposes it’s a good thing, the lack of text notifications. No news is good news, right? Harry not texting means the discomfort hadn’t gotten bad enough for him to ask for help. Although, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still worry.

In fact, she’d passed by her room on the way back up to the attic on that first snack run. She couldn’t help but check on Harry, suddenly struck by an image of her overly fatigued friend collapsing and braining himself on the toilet or something while she and her sister blithely watched their movie and ate their popcorn. Nevermind that logically Macy knew that Harry’s magical nature made the man far sturdier than the average human and gave him healing abilities on top of that. At just the thought her heart had started to pound.

Her worry in overdrive, Macy had practically burst into the bathroom expecting to see her whitelighter laid out and bleeding on the tile floor. Instead, she had found him already well into his shower, startled by her unexpected and hasty arrival but otherwise perfectly toned–

 _Unharmed!_ Perfectly _unharmed_ _..._

She’d attempted to cover her panicked intrusion and the subsequent once-over she’d given him (twice) with a few babbled words about forgetting to replace their supply of various towels when he’d held up a washcloth and pointed out the neat stack of at least a half dozen of the same on her wicker towel caddy. 

At that, she’d had to laugh at herself and admit to him that she’d just been worried. She’d cited the movie as having keyed up her imagination. After assurances that he would be fine Macy had left him to his shower and hadn’t heard from him since. Now, she could only hope he’d gotten to bed okay and was getting the rest he so obviously needed.

And that bit of optimism is in large part the reason why, as Macy steps into her darkened room she’s startled into emitting a strangled sound that’s halfway between a scream and choked off laughter. Because despite being the very last thing she expected to find, there he is… Harry Greenwood, lying on her bed, naked as a jaybird and fast asleep.


	12. Chapter 12

When Macy steps into her room a paradoxical shudder runs through her as the faintly humid air, bearing more than a trace of the warmth and the unique fragrance of Harry's shower, wafts over her. Indulging herself for just the quickest of moments, Macy pulls in a deep breath and lets the oddly strong scent of Harry’s soap fill her nose and pass over her parted lips. It’s been at least an hour, maybe even two since she’d shooed Harry out of the kitchen. And yet, just like in almost every facet of Macy’s life, Harry’s presence seems to insist on lingering.

In the quiet of her own space, Macy doesn’t bother to suppress the shiver that thought sends traveling over her whole body or deny that when it settles, it settles hot and liquid between her legs. When she bites her lip it’s not to stifle a sigh so much as to hold on to the tingling sensation running over her sex as she decides how best to end her night.

The corner of Macy’s lip quirks up, maybe a shower for herself wouldn’t be such a bad idea. She crosses her arms and her hands curl over the hem of her shirt. The tips of her breasts tighten at both the brush of the fabric and the anticipation of stepping into the more heavily scented air of the bathroom. A little endorphin rush courtesy of her detachable showerhead would _definitely_ be a more than acceptable cap to an already relaxing evening, Macy decides as she tugs her shirt up and over her head.

Just as her shirt is about to clear the top of her head a soft, _familiar_ snore sounds behind her. Macy whirls toward the sound, shirt pressed against her mouth and stifling a startled shriek that wants so badly to turn into outright laughter. Because there in her bed, lying sprawled out, book in hand and sound asleep in her bed like some boudoir-styled Goldilocks is a stark naked, Harry Greenwood.

 _Oh, Harry,_ Macy thinks affectionately at the man in her bed as she moves towards the bed.

Gathering from towel still mostly beneath his hips and the book lying loosely in his outstretched hand, it looks to Macy as though Harry might have taken a moment to look through one of his books just after his shower. From what she can make out through the shadows, she guesses from its size and relative slimness that it’s most likely the Treatise on Neolithic Symbols he had been reading to her the evening before.

Reading aloud to her, even when he knew she was only half-listening, had become Harry’s go-to way of distracting himself while they conducted their research on the device. There was no way spending his evenings lying on his back with his legs draped over her knees could be comfortable. 

“Uncomfortable and _rather undignified,”_ he’d made it a point to tell her more than once. But really, it had turned out to be the best position for them both. With Harry laid out before her like that Macy was able take care of all the things she needed to such as casting the spells that coaxed the device into revealing its secrets and soothing both it and Harry when it stubbornly or aggressively held on to said secrets.

So whatever method Harry chose to take his mind off his discomfort, physical or dignity-related, Macy was more than willing to indulge him. And if that meant being treated to the deep rumble of Harry’s voice as he explained the difference between this ancient writing system and that, then so be it. 

She was a seasoned scientist, for god’s sake. She could _absolutely_ stay focused on her task no matter how that damned voice of his rumbled straight through her and left her feeling achy, tight and just plain wound up for any number of hours _after_ he left her bed.

A rustle of movement brings Macy back to the present and she presses the fabric harder against her lips as what little moonlight filters through the thin drapery and over Harry’s pale form. Harry lets out another snuffle and shifts over onto his side, presenting her with an altogether different sort of moon and Macy’s entire body shakes with silent mirth. The light bounces brightly off of the bare curve of the whitelighter's more than admirable ass. Much like the way she suspects a penny would, if she had one to flick at him.

Macy snorts at the punchiness of her thoughts. God, she thinks to herself as she slips her shirt back over her head, it really is late and Harry, despite being in the wrong bed, definitely has the right idea. And speaking of beds…

Macy pads quietly over to Harry where he lies on what has unofficially become ‘his’ side of her bed. She reaches over him and plucks Harry’s book from his lax fingers, laying it on top of the already too tall stack of books and magazines on his bedside table. Despite the rapidly diminishing space both on top and below the little table, Harry’s ‘favorites’ have not stopped their steady migration from his room to Macy’s.

Spying a scrap of notepaper and a pen by her own pillow Macy gestures at it to float over to her own nightstand rather than risk disturbing Harry. Already having decided from that very first snore that there really is no point in waking him, much less sending the poor man all the way downstairs to his own bed, Macy pulls one of her extra blankets from the chest at the foot of her bed and sets it aside before she moves back the sleeping whitelighter. He can just stay here while she takes his bed for that night.

Just as before, a shiver runs through Macy’s body at the thought of being surrounded by Harry’s scent. That same, sharp yet warmly masculine scent wafting up from the man himself. Twin flashes of heat spark in her cheeks and she quickly shoves away the image herself burrowing down into Harry’s bed, surrounded not only by that heady scent but by his ar–

_Think of anything -any_ **_one_ ** _\- else, Macy. Think of Ju-_

A door clicks shut in her mind and Macy pulls in a deep breath, clenching her fists against a wave of want and guilt. When she exhales and relaxes her fingers her attention re-centers on the task at hand: Harry, damp towel, damp covers, sleep.

Feeling more focused, Macy rests a soft and steady hand, feather-light onto Harry’s bare hip. She shakes her head and sighs at the almost clamminess of his skin. If it weren’t for Harry’s whitelighter nature she might almost be afraid he was sick. As it is, he probably just needs to not be lying completely exposed to the cool night air, even if he’s indoors. 

Honestly, if she thought she could do it without waking him and if it wasn’t sort of a weirdly intrusive move, she’d be trying to use her powers to get him into those fancy, grandpa pajamas he loves so much. Maybe even the ones that she mixes up with her own whenever his laundry gets mysteriously tossed in with hers.

Macy laughs to herself at the thought of accidentally slipping him into her own pajamas and bites her lip to keep that laugh completely internal. Continuing with her ‘mission’, she lets her palm mold over the sharp point of Harry’s hip and draws her thumb down in a small, sweeping caress. Leaning over him so that her lips are just above his ear she murmurs to him to lift up just a little. 

Macy keeps her voice low, whispering to her sleeping whitelighter in the gentle but firm tone that she’s learned can get him to rouse only just enough to follow some simple directions. Harry mumbles her name but lifts his hips all the same, allowing Macy to tug both his towel and the now damp bedspread from beneath his hips and legs. Macy rewards him for his cooperation with a murmured ‘thank you’ and a soft, appreciative squeeze on the arm. 

A glance at the blanket and rumpled sheet at Harry’s feet has them floating upwards until their edges settle into Macy’s waiting hand. She pulls both over Harry, tucking them around his shoulders. She grazes her fingertips over the hair at his nape when once again he shifts in his sleep. This time when her name leaves Harry’s lips, it leaves them on a contented sigh.

-∵-

With Harry asleep on just the other side of the bathroom door, Macy finds herself seriously rethinking the shower she’s currently in the midst of taking. On the one hand it feels so good, just what the doctor ordered. On the other…

On the other hand, the temptation to flip open the bottle of soap that Macy, herself, had bought him just to let its scent once again saturate the air has her hand reaching out to Harry’s corner of the shower almost of its own volition. She manages to pull her hand back only to find herself fighting another battle not to pull down the showerhead if only just to satisfy the ache that’s been growing between her legs since she first came back to her room. Taking a shower was supposed to be relaxing and right now she is anything but.

Macy lets a groan of frustration escape her, knowing the rush of water will drown out the sound. She knows this… this _buzzing_ inside her is probably because she hasn’t had a decent orgasm in weeks. It really isn’t _all_ Julian’s fault. He’s been busy and on the go for pretty much the entire time she’s known him. Sometimes he's just plain tired. And if she’s going to be honest with herself, Macy herself hasn’t been trying all that hard to make the most of what little time they _do_ spend together. 

Macy’s fingers curl against the tiled wall as she concentrates on the sound of water beating loudly against her shower cap.

Maybe if she _had_ tried harder with Julian her senses wouldn’t be so damn fixated on the scents, sounds and general _presence_ of a man who, up until a few weeks ago, couldn’t quite decide whether he hated her, had feelings for her, or just wanted to be friends.

Although, given that speech of his after he and Mel had ‘rescued’ the Darklighter, it seems he’s settled on that last one. Which is fine with her, it really is. Those girlish hopes that had welled up in Macy as she had raced over to the command center in search of Harry and the way _that_ had ended?

Even if she’s pretty sure she’s about to be unattached -and sooner rather than later- it is more than past time to put those feelings away and do what someone like her did best; be his smart, serious, and dependable _friend._

-∵-

Unfortunately, when she steps out of the shower a few minutes later she finds herself feeling significantly more tightly wound than when she’d entered. All the looseness and relative peace of mind from her night with her sisters and Harry obliterated by the unrelenting churn of her thoughts.

Macy avoids looking over at the figure occupying her bed as she hurries into her closet to get dressed. If she’s going to really be the best friend she can be for her family’s whitelighter then she needs to not be thinking about how he’s sleeping naked in her bed. Much less thinking about that while still naked herself. There just… There needs to be less nudity in general! 

Macy leans her head against the tall dresser tucked into the back of the closet and tries to take in a calming breath. Resolve filling her, Macy comes to the conclusion as she’s slipping on a pair of panties that there is just no way she can sleep in Harry’s bed, now. Not when she’s just made the decision to put those kinds of thoughts behind her. While Harry doesn’t seem to have any problem spending the night in her bed of someone he’s decided he only wants to be friends with after months of supposed pining or whatever the hell it was he had subjected both of them to, Macy can’t really say the same for herself. At least not yet. But she _can_ bunk on the living room couch for the night; it’ll be _fine._

It’s when she’s pulled the top half of her pajamas over her shoulders that a sound catches Macy’s attention. Unlike earlier, it’s not the usual soft snufflings or rustle of sheets she hears. It’s something more… _pained_. Hastily, Macy does up a single button before racing out of the closet.

What she finds when she reaches the side of her bed is her whitelighter, twisting amongst her sheets, deep in the throes of a nightmare.


	13. Chapter 13

Macy races to the bed, scrambling up onto the mattress to where Harry’s twisting and thrashing have moved him closer to the center of the bed. Her bare knees register the dampness of the sheets as she crosses the expanse of the bed and in the weak moonlight she can see the sheen of sweat covering every inch of Harry’s skin.

She reaches for him, hands trying to find purchase on Harry’s slick shoulder in order to pull him towards her. Eyes screwed shut, Harry mumbles and tries to shrug out of her grip. He whimpers as he kicks at the sheet and blanket now down around his ankles. His garbled words rising in pitch and volume as his movements only serve to further tangle his feet in the bedclothes.

Macy looks frantically around the room before locating their privacy candle. With a point of her finger and a word, she demands the wick ignite. Ever so briefly, Harry’s drenched hair gleams as the candle’s wick bursts into flame, coating the ceiling and walls in magic.

Filling her voice with as much purpose as she can conjure, she whispers his name, hoping Harry can hear her through whatever vision is terrorizing him behind his closed lids.

She hears her name leave Harry’s lips as if something is tearing it out of him and Macy realizes with a sudden and absolute certainty that she _must_ find a way to get through to him, to wake him in before... Macy glances at Harry’s face, his handsome features twisted into a pained expression.

In something close to panic, Macy’s hand shoots out to reach around and brush her fingers over the plastic device. She lets out a quick huff of relief and drops her forehead to Harry’s shoulder. It’s calm for now, almost as if it, too, is asleep but not sharing Harry’s dream. But who knows how long that will last?

She tries again to wake her whitelighter, calling his name and pulling at his arm, “Harry? Harry, it’s just a dream. You need to wake up.”

Harry flinches, seemingly at the sound of her voice. His pants, if possible, become harsher and he cries out, “No, no… not her, please, not her. Why was she sent here? What have you done to her?!”

“It’s not real, baby. C’mon, Harry, open your eyes. I’m here. I’m right here, baby. Wake up, wake up, oh god please, Harry,” Macy begs, sensing even without being in direct contact with the device it’s rising agitation. “Please, Harry, you need to wake up!”

He doesn’t respond, at least not to her. Instead he spits out a stream of curses at his nightmare-conjured tormentor, seething anger dripping from every word.

“ _My_ failures, _my_ sins. _You had no right to bring her here!”_

Macy pushes herself up and prepares to swing a leg over Harry’s torso, thinking to crawl over to the other side of him without having to leave the bed. Without warning, Harry’s whole body twists beneath her and he falls onto his back. In the process, he knocks Macy’s leg out from under her. 

Macy lets out a choked curse but catches herself before she can collapse entirely atop of him. She jerks her leg over his waist, her knee narrowly missing the cage. Instead it skims the inside of her thigh and Macy shudders as its rising fear makes itself known, even with so fleeting a touch.

Macy’s hands move to Harry’s shoulders and her knees press against his ribcage as she struggles to push herself off of him. A hand closes around her upper arm, its grip painfully strong. She feels Harry’s ragged breaths pushing his belly against her. Macy looks down at him, hoping to see his eyes open and alert but they remain tightly closed.

Balanced above him, Macy watches Harry’s head thrashes and knocks away the pillows under his head until he’s lying completely flat against the mattress. His grip tightens and the pain of it becomes nearly unbearable. Macy tugs against the grip, pleading with the terrified man to let her go.

“Please, Harry, let go. Harry, _fuck,_ you’re hurting me. _Erlenmeyer,_ ” she gasps out, hoping against hope that maybe their safeword will penetrate Harry’s terror.

Harry’s brows knit together as confusion flashes over his face. His fingers slacken just enough and Macy is able to pull her arm free. The confusion passes quickly as the nightmare reasserts itself and once again Harry pleads with his unseen tormentor to let her, Macy, go.

Macy leans down, wincing at the throbbing pain in her arm and bracing her elbows against the bed. Her hands sinking into Harry’s sweat drenched hair, she presses her lips to the angle of his jaw before moving to the shell of his ear. 

Tears run from beneath his closed lids in hot rivulets to trickle over the top of Macy’s nose. Her name leaves his lips on another sob and Macy feels her heart stutter and clench in pain.

"No. Stop,” he gasps. “Leave her be. She shouldn’t even be here. Anything, I will do anything. Please, not her…"

“Oh god, Harry. Harry, you’re safe. Open your eyes. You’re home, you’re safe, baby. I promise, we’re both safe. Open your eyes and look. We’re home.”

Hand tightening in his hair, she presses her lips to Harry’s ear and calls his name again, louder this time. She pours every last ounce of desperate purpose into his name. Her voice cracks wetly with tears as she begs Harry to leave his dream and come back to her.

She feels a surge in both magic and abject fear just a half-second before Harry’s eyes fly open and his lips part on a choked-off sound of pain.

The world turns upside down as Harry jerks and twists and Macy is thrown to the side. Clawing at the fitted sheet trapped under Harry’s weight is all that slows her descent to the floor. As she struggles up to her feet she sees Harry’s hands fly to his groin. He rolls to his side, facing her as his body curls into a fetal position.

She reaches out to him with shaking hands, almost hesitant to touch him at all lest she cause him more pain. Harry raises his eyes to meet hers and the anguish, the pleading look, the tears streaming over the bridge of his nose… 

“T-t-t-tee, hnnnggg…” 

_No, no, no…not again._

In horror, Macy watches Harry’s eyes roll back as presumably the device redoubles it’s panicked assault on him. He moans, low and almost animal-like while a shudder wracks his body. In that instant any and all hesitation in her burns away. There’s no more time for hesitation, he needs her help _now._

Harry’s knees are drawn up tight, his hands cupped protectively over the device. Macy runs a hand over his hip and down to his knee while the other slides against the bed to cup his cheek. He presses face hard against her hand and whispers her name as if it were a mantra against pain.

Reluctantly she pulls her hand from his cheek. Forehead pressed against his knee, she pleads with him to relax his legs. 

"Harry, you need to open up. Just a little, I just need you to move your knees a little. Please, baby,” she begs, pressing her lips against the hard knob of his knee. “You need to let me help you."

His face is turned into the mattress and she can hear his heaving breaths even with his mouth pressed against the surface. He whimpers and swears just a moment before the muscles under her palm ease just the tiniest bit. Macy pauses for a few seconds, lightly stroking him from hip to knee before moving to slip her hand between his thighs. 

Even before her fingers make contact, Macy can feel the tendrils of the device’s magic seeking her out and imploring her wordlessly to hold it and reassure _it_ that it, too, is safe in her care. She lays her head next to Harry’s and brushes the tip of his nose with her own. Softly, Macy whispers to him to move his hands. He shakes as he works to comply but soon enough Macy is able to replace his hands with her own. Still murmuring words of comfort to her whitelighter and bussing her lips against his damp forehead, Macy curls her fingers around the device begins to caress the plastic beast.

-∵-

After only a few minutes of murmured assurances and being stroked and pet like the wild, frightened creature it is, the cage seems to go dormant. Macy knows the instant the ‘teeth’ retract as Harry begins sobbing with heart-wrenching gratitude.

“Thank you. _Oh god, thank you_ ,” he pants into her hand that he’s pulled from his crown brought tightly against his lips. 

Macy’s own relief hits her like a wave, crashing against the inside of her chest and she presses her own kiss to the back of his hand, his white-knuckled fingers now threaded through hers. They stay like that for a long moment, waiting for their racing hearts to calm.

-∵-

When the breaths coursing over the back of her hand are no longer so frighteningly ragged, Macy cautiously pulls her other hand away from the now quiet device. But her fingers curl, tips registering an unfamiliar quality in the wetness coating her palm. She presses a kiss onto the fingers holding her hand and then another to Harry’s forehead before extricating her hand from his grip.

Macy brings her hand to her mouth and speaks an incantation, _sotto voce_ into her cupped palm. She makes sure to hold it high enough that the device doesn't feel threatened by the magic she directs the light emanating from her hand, first over her wet palm and then over Harry's groin. 

Macy gasps. Her palm is smeared with red and what should be bright, blue plastic is stained purple, blood coating the entire inside of the tube. From the ventilation slits at the sides and tip of the cage’s tube blood drips, leaving dark, crimson rivulets trailing over Harry’s thigh. As gently as she can, Macy brushes the back of a knuckle through the damp curls just at the base of Harry’s penis where the ring that secured the device to him lays against his skin. Sure enough it, too, comes away stained with red.

She rises to her feet, her legs feeling like jello in the wake of the adrenaline rush. Harry’s hand reaches out to her and his voice is still weak as he implores her not to leave him.

“I’ll be right back, just going to wash my hands. And I need something to get something to clean you up.”

In the bathroom, Macy braces her hands against the countertop, heedless of the bloody handprint she’s sure to leave behind. She glares at the mirror and stops herself short of conjuring up another nightmare to tear the woman responsible for Harry’s pain into shreds. Though, it would serve that bitch right to be chased, tormented, destroyed, and _devoured alive_ by the most primal horrors the world has to offer, angry wraiths borne of centuries of sorrow and degradation. 

But no, Macy shakes her head and dismisses the hazy yet questioning face waiting in the distance behind her mirror. She lets the lines of fury and power beyond that of mere fire recede from her face. She twists the knob marked ‘H’ and lets the steaming water from the spigot carry away Harry’s blood. That bitch’s last moments will come and with pain unimaginable, but only when Macy is there to watch it happen and relish Abigael’s gurgling screams.

Meanwhile, there is family to care for, namely her poor, exhausted Harry, lying quiet and limp in her bed.

-∵-


	14. Chapter 14

They don’t talk about it the next morning. They don’t discuss how Macy had made her way back to her bloodied and limp whitelighter and cleaned him up as best she could. They don’t speak about how she had crawled into bed afterwards, exhausted in her own right and yet had the grace to let him curl his body around her, seeking even more comfort when she had already done so much, far, far too much for him already. They don’t speak on his twining their legs and pressing his face into the notch of her throat murmuring nonsense into her damp skin as they both lay in the cool darkness of her room, willing their hearts and minds to stop racing.

He doesn't bring it up, despite his own conscience clamoring inside of him to do so, to apologize for the way he'd clung to her. Apologize for the way he’d pulled her knee over his hip in his almost frantic drive to insinuate himself between her legs. 

Without knowing exactly how the knowledge came to him, Harry had instantly understood that lying pillowed on the softness of Macy's inner thigh would be the one thing to bring the device some modicum of peace. The moment Macy’s knees had bumped against his, he’d known it just as surely as he knew his own name. Just like Harry, the device needed _her._

And what he’d needed, she’d let him take. Even now, several days later and siting down to dinner with Macy and her sisters, Harry’s gratitude for Macy’s care that night floors him and tightens his throat. He remembers the way she’d laid her hand over his, stroking at the fingers digging into the back of her thigh, the way she’d flexed the leg over his hip to help pull him in closer, the soft sounds that weren’t quite words that she’d hummed against his ear… She’d been his anchor when it felt as if his mind was slipping away. There was no way to repay her, not truly. Nonetheless, it would be his life’s goal to try.

-

The family’s dinner finishes quietly and Harry claims all of the washing up as his to do. He doesn’t consider it stalling for time, what on earth would he be avoiding? His time will be spent with one of, if not _the_ most captivating woman he has ever known. Harry is simply… taking a minute for himself. A moment to gather his thoughts and settle any inappropriate urges before spends the rest of the evening with a _friend._

With the kitchen now spotless and the adjoining sunroom as well. And the living room _and_ dining room’s plants are all watered. And…

Harry sighs, guilt and a shameful excitement warring inside him. There’s nothing left to tidy and she is _waiting._ A subtle pressure below his waist reminds Harry that he is not the only one eager to once again place themselves under a certain witch’s gentle hands. _Well, if needs must_ , he tells himself as he ascends the stairs, his slow climb quickening to almost a bound as his name echoes softly in his head.

Due to the lateness of their evening meal, they’d both agreed to skip their usual ~~cuddle~~ conversation on the attic couch and retire immediately to Macy’s room for the night. When Harry knocks on her half-open door he can see her moving through the room lighting candle after candle. Even from his position just outside her room he can feel the warmth the dozen or so flickering flames have imparted to the air. He leans a shoulder against the jamb, indulging in the sight of the witch lit by the glow of the firelight before once again rapping a knuckle against the door.

“Macy?”

He sees Macy start, a short laugh bursting from her lips. She’s grinning as she turns in his direction and the warmth he feels seems to increase tenfold.

“I do believe that’s _my_ job,” Harry intones sardonically, arms folded across his chest. He tries to keep his expression stern as he nods at the long-stemmed match in her hand only to feel his lips pull upwards just the same.

“Well, Harry,” she answers him, words soft and low, “you were just taking so long down there.” Harry finds himself frozen as she moves around the corner of her bed, eyes locked with his. She pads towards him, a hand cupped protectively around the flame of her match. “I figured I might as get us set up while I waited for you to, you know, finish cleaning the _entire downstairs.”_ Her voice is just as warm as the candlelight despite her light admonition and Harry’s heart stutters when she comes to a stop right in front of him. Harry feels her hand slip into his and he’s breathless as she draws him fully into her room. “But,” she murmurs, bringing his hand up and curling his fingers around the end the long matchstick, “I did leave the last one for you.”

It takes a fair amount of effort just to follow her gaze to the candle standing unlit atop her dresser and not say, snuff out the match and let it fall to the floor as he claims that wide, smiling mouth for his own. Would she taste of the mint tea he’d brewed for the two of them before she’d gone upstairs?

Even when his mind finally registers that the candle he’s staring blankly at is their privacy candle and that Macy means to start their research session, Harry’s thoughts continue to drift. He should be getting undressed and yet…thoughts of such a candle’s other uses lead to visions of walking Macy back to her bed and helping _her_ divest of _her_ clothing. Laying _her_ down on the surface of the bed and arranging _her_ legs over his. Letting his hands wander until _she_ squirms and sighs and Harry’s hands are the ones gleaming in the candlelight, covered with the evidence of _her_ arousal, for once. To see her both relaxed and happy under his ministrations. And this infernal contraption be damned, he’d use his mou–

“Harry?”

Harry immediately snaps back to the present with a sharp sniff. A wisp of smoke hits the back of his throat and Harry’s eyes water as he works to hold back a coughing fit. He doesn’t succeed and he bends in half with hands on his knees.

“Oh my god, Harry! Are you okay?”

He doesn’t see so much as feel the matchstick being taken from him, doubled over as his lungs heave and spasm in an effort to expel the mistakenly inhaled smoke and saliva. He does, however, catch sight of her whipping the match by her knee to extinguish it’s heat and smoke. He glares at the dissipating smoke and curses it, even knowing it was his own reckless daydreaming that’s put in this position, head between his knees, arse in the air and looking for all the world like an utter idiot in front of his witch. 

_Stupid, stupid Harry, it serves you right…_

-

Just over an hour later, Macy hears a murmur, bassy and indistinct just before Harry’s hips shift and his bare legs move, tugging at the satin of her pajama bottoms. She drops her notepad and pen to the side and looks up at Harry, one hand already curling around the plastic between his legs and the other stroking reassuringly over the top of his thigh. But after a moment, her lips quirk into a bemused grin. There’s not a drop of distress to be found in the plastic cage nor in the face of the dozing Whitelighter. In fact, in the moment she lets eyes linger on his mouth, Macy detects what appears to be a faint smile curling his lips. He shifts again, this time burrowing his shoulders deeper between pillow and mattress before finally stilling.

She sighs, not particularly eager to disturb whatever pleasant dream he might be having but she has only one last spell to cast and one last bit of the cage to inspect. If she does it now, they can be done with this part of the research for the foreseeable future. Macy can see how uncomfortable it makes him, her handling him in this way. Even with the device seemingly less reactive to her magic these days, Harry still finds it difficult to stay still whenever she has to perform the illumination spell on it. A disconcerting buzzing, he’d described it as once, not unlike the sound of swarming bees.

Shifting her own legs, Macy slides Harry’s gently onto the bed and rearranges herself until she’s sitting on her heels. She reaches over and strokes the insides of his thighs with the backs of her fingers while calling his name quietly. Hearing his drowsy hum of acknowledgement, Macy glances up and Harry’s gaze meets hers from beneath half-closed lids, that half-smile still lingering on his lips.

Cupping her palms over his legs she adds a little bit of pressure by way of her thumbs to the inside line of his thighs as she draws her hands down to his knees again. She mouths, _open_ as she does so and she feels his muscles tense under her hands. His eyes slide shut and his lips twitch and he obeys. She helps him spread his legs as wide as he’s able, stopping when he groans. Knowing how he sometimes experiences soreness from being arranged like this for long periods of time, Macy pauses to massage his hips, pressing her fingers deep into the various muscles and tendons strained by this position. Taking her cues from his groans and hisses she rubs harder here and lightens her touch there before finally reaching out to lift his knees just a tad to take some pressure off his back.

Macy leans back to take in the sight before her and, satisfied with what she sees, she scoots down until she’s crouched with her head directly over the cage.

“Very last one, Harry. Are you ready?”

There’s a moment of near silence when all that can be heard is the two or three deep and deliberate breaths Harry takes before giving his assent in low and gravely, _yes_.

Bracing herself against the bed with one hand she takes hold of the cage with the other and leans down until her lips are a scant half inch from the tip. She begins the spell with a deep breath, calling up her magic and imbuing said breath with the power of her spell. 

She releases the words, directing her magic laden breath to spill onto the hidden words carved into the plastic. As she does so the cage bobs unexpectedly, the tip glancing over her moving lips and leaving behind a thin smear of moisture. Macy tightens her grip on the bit of the cage near the root to steady it. She needs to keep it steady so the spell will hit the target area she’s aiming for and reveal the last of the markings that make up the device’s curse. Unthinkingly, Macy’s tongue glides over her lips, sweeping away a bit of sweetness and moistening her lips as she continues to chant softly over the cage. She hears Harry groan but sensing no distress in the device and having more than half the incantation to go Macy has no choice but to actively ignore him. 

That only grows more difficult as he grinds out her name in a plea. She knows how stressful this bit of their research can be, but she has no choice. This is the last part of the curse left to be revealed. Once that’s done they’ll be so much closer to finding a way to free him.

Macy pushes onward, repositioning the arm that holds him so that she can restrain his squirming hips with her forearm while still keeping the cage steady near her lips. She uses her other hand to sweep long strokes down his side and over his hip, trying to comfort him with her touch while she’s unable to do so with words.

She stumbles briefly over a phrase and she feels Harry’s hips shake. The coils beneath them creak as Harry presses his heels into the mattress. Macy feels Harry’s hand fumble over her own, pulling it away from his hip and threading his fingers through hers. Belatedly, Macy realizes that lost in her concentration she’d started to dig her nails into the curve of Harry’s buttock. Silently, she apologizes to him before turning back to her casting.

When the final words of the spell are spoken a sound not unlike a match striking rises up from the device. In a flash of golden light of the last glyphs reveal themselves, the intensity causing Macy rear back. She blinks furiously, trying to force the glare out of her eyes. Thankfully, it clears quickly and she’s able to see the new set of rings swirling around the cage’s tip. It’s intense light illuminates the rest of the cage until it glows like a cut sapphire caught in the sun.

Snatching up her notepad, Macy begins to hurriedly transcribe what she sees. She leans down once more, holding the cage still and swiping at the thick, clear fluid from where it has gathered at the tip and obscures a portion of the ringed symbols. She does it again and again, the fluid dripping copiously through the slit. Macy forces herself to work carefully as well as quickly so as to get all the symbols copied down _correctly_ before the golden light fades and the words sink back beneath the surface of the thick plastic. 

With a singular focus set firmly on the cage, Macy hardly notices the bed beneath her rocking as Harry's arched back collapses heavily onto the mattress, his breathing ragged and his fingers curled into the sheets beneath his hip in a white-knuckled grip. Within a few short minutes the crudely carved glyphs dim and then disappear altogether, leaving the cage still a bright blue but no longer quite so jewel-like. 

Setting her notes aside, Macy finally looks up and a tight feeling takes up residence in her chest. The expression on Harry’s face is pained and he’s holding himself so rigid. She calls his name and tells him they’re finished, reaching over to cover his hands with her own. Harry doesn’t respond and if anything the lines of his body only grow more tense. He pulls his hands from the bed sheets and grinds the heels of his palms into his closed eyes.

This isn’t the first time she’s seen her whitelighter like this. Her illumination spells, even when the device can be convinced not to react to them, still take their toll on Harry. Something about the way that particular magic interacts with the nature of his whitelighter body that leaves him shaken and agitated. The only thing to do now is to wait it out.

Macy gets up from the bed and sets her notes on her nightstand. Analysis, she decides, can wait until tomorrow. Then, falling back onto their new evening routine, Macy pulls off her pajama bottoms and sets them aside before slipping into the bed and pulling the turned down covers up over the both of them. Harry’s back is turned to her and so she curls herself around him, arm looping over his waist and searching out the cage to check on its ‘mood’. His hand closes around hers and for a moment it feels as though he wants to pull her hand away. But instead his fingers spasm over hers, crushing them tight around the tubing before apologizing and pulling his own hand away.

Macy tries not to think too hard about the ‘requirements’ of the curse laid upon the device, the steps Harry would have to take to free himself, lest her ire rise once again. Given the spoiled and cruel nature of the clumsy spell’s creator, it makes a horrible kind of sense that even an object as simple as a chastity cage would be forcibly imbued with an unwilling forest spirit in an attempt to satisfy the so-called Overlord’s sexual appetites. Feigning distress, threats of violence and resorting to curses doing the heavy lifting where her personality could do next to nothing to get the sane to join her in bed. Macy cradles the too easily agitated device in her palm and sighs. The poor thing, a victim almost as much as Harry.

After a minute, Macy winces as an ache sets up in her elbow. She rubs her thumb over the slit, pad glancing over the still leaking tip and pulls back when she hears Harry hiss. Agitation still not quite dissipated, his flesh is pressed and bulging somewhat through the opening at the end of the tube. She whispers an apology and tries to withdraw altogether but Harry’s hand closes around her wrist before she can pull back entirely. He tugs her arm more securely around him and flattens her palm over his thudding heart.

“Harry, you need to turn around,” she tries to remind him. It’s how they sleep every night now, Harry facing her and the device tucked against her skin. Harry’s nightmares and the device’s violent reactions held at bay with constant contact throughout the night. 

“Yes, yes, of course, I know,” comes his answer, muffled by the pillow his face is pressed into.

Waiting, Macy rests her forehead against his damp and cooling back. Harry shivers and she tugs the covers higher to cover his shoulders. Pressing herself tight against his back, she wills her body heat to sink into him and warm him up. 

When he still doesn’t turn, she sighs and brushes her nose against the back of his neck. There are other ways. Moving down just a few inches, Macy nudges her knee into the hollow behind his and pushes it between his when she feels his legs relax. Tucked in as close as she can be against both man and cursed, plastic object, Macy settles in for the night hoping sleep and the morning brings them both a little bit of peace before they must inevitably discuss the true nature of Harry’s curse.

-

He doesn’t dare move. Doesn’t dare turn around. Harry knows that if he does it will only end with him begging. Begging her for things he absolutely cannot and must not have. Things he has no right to ask of her. Begging her to break the cage off of him once more and to wrap her hands around him, damn the consequences. Or begging her to take her small vibrator (that he’d inadvertently discovered whilst looking in the wrong drawer some days ago) to his cock’s fiendish prison. Or even, goddamn him, beg her to take her slim fingers and penetrate him, to stroke him from within. Something, _anything_ to bring an end to the clawing need the feel of her magic swirling around his cock has built up inside of him. Harry feels as though he’s about to fly out of his skin. Never in the sixty years he can recall, and he is certain neither in the forty-some that he cannot, has he felt such desperation to bloody _come_.

But it’s not to be. And so Harry clings to the edge of the bed as she presses herself, warm and soft and solid against his back. Her arm wraps around him and he pulls her tight against him. Her leg insinuates itself between his until his swollen and aching sack rests against her thigh. He tries desperately to ignore the feel of his precum leaking over them both. Dear god, what she must think of him. Harry squeezes his eyes shut, waiting and begging for sleep or the oblivion of madness to take him.


	15. Chapter 15

Macy lies still, listening to the faint patter of rain on the rooftop. She cracks her eyes open then immediately shuts them, wondering what could possibly have pulled her from her dreams before the sun has even started to rise.

She can just about feel herself sink back beneath the waves of sleep when a sound, not unlike a purr, escapes her own throat and breaks the relative silence of her bedroom. Even as she is dragged back to wakefulness, bits of the delicious dream she had just been enjoying flit through her mind and she basks in the memory of moist lips brushing a line of delicate kisses along the back of her neck. _Yes, just like that_ , she thinks as a kiss lands against the angle of her jaw. A shiver runs down her spine when an answering hum, deep and content reverberates against the back of her ear.

Macy feels herself being jostled a moment before a hand comes to lie flat against her belly. She bites back a sound as that hand begins to stroke at the skin and draw circles around her navel. After a few turns, those fingers drift lower to trace the top edge of her panties’ waistband.

There’s a rumbling against her ear that it takes her a few seconds to realize are words. Hushed words. Dirty, dirty words. Strung together to form a request to whoever it is he’s dreaming of. A request so filthy and imaginative, Macy can’t help but snort in amusement.

He continues in that sleep-roughened voice and when she starts to turn her head to wake and scold him a throaty chortle sounds against her ear.

 _“Just a dream,"_ he mumbles, rubbing his lips against her before pressing a kiss to her shoulder. _"Let a man dream...”_

She snorts out another soft, indulgent laugh -of course he’s dreaming again. The talking is new, but given the evening he’d had, Macy decides to let it slide. She pats the arm wrapped around her waist and then pulls it tighter against herself. She snuggles back into his chest and lets herself drift hoping this time the heaviness of sleep will pull her back under.

But sadly, no such luck. Only a moment later Harry’s lips are once again pressing against her ear. When he groans out another ‘request’, this one about what he would allow himself to be subjected to, Macy’s eyes slide shut. 

_Dammit_ , she swears to herself, pressing her thighs together. She needs him to _fucking stop_ , his voice alone setting off a flood of warmth and wetness between her legs.

 _“I would let her do anything to me._ **_Anything_** _,”_ he promises earnestly.

Macy feels his tongue flicker against the hollow behind her ear and when he wraps his lips around her earlobe and pulls it sends a bolt of pure sensation straight through her. Macy’s eyes roll back behind her still-closed lids and she heaves in a breath on a long and broken gasp. 

The noisy and wet attentions he pays to that small sensitive part of her…

_Fuck._

Against her better judgment, Macy imagines his mouth between her legs, licking and suckling just as tenderly at her clit and she feels her inner muscles clench.

Her hips shift and she can feel the hard plastic of his cage bump against her already swollen folds. A tiny tendril of its magic unfurls and flickers, tickling her through the damp fabric of her panties. God, was this the cage’s doing? Was this why she was being tortured like this?

His tongue laves at a spot behind her ear and Macy digs the fingers she hadn’t realized were splayed over Harry’s hip into the warm flesh of his firm ass. Harry’s hips jerk at the prick of her nails and Macy swears at the sudden press of his cage against her covered center. He retreats ever so slightly but not before Macy feels his ever-flowing fluids drip down the back of her thigh.

She whines out his name and tries to let him go, her hand opening and closing over him. But it’s something about the way the fine hairs feel under her palm, the way they brush against her fingertips that sends shivers through her and makes her whole sex feel that much more drenched… The way he moans against her hair when her hand slips further back and her fingertips dip into the cleft between his–

Macy snatches her hand back, ignoring Harry’s murmur of disappointment. Oh god, what the hell does she think she’s doing? This isn’t real, she reminds herself bitterly. Harry isn’t dreaming about _you_ …

Her self-directed scolding is abruptly cut off when she registers Harry’s nails scratching lightly through the hairs on her mound as he pulls his hand out of her panties and back up over her belly. Macy blinks rapidly, how far gone is she that she hadn’t even noticed him slipping his hand down there in the first place?

With his arm back around her waist, he tugs her close. Laying his forehead heavily against her the back of her head, he returns to his quiet yet urgent recitation of all the ways he’d touch his imaginary lover if given her permission.

Distracted by his words, Macy hardly notices how Harry’s hand drags slowly over the top of her shirt. Without thought, her hand cups his elbow then skims along the length of his forearm, brushing her fingertips back and forth over the soft hairs and tracing the bones of his wrist.

_“Would she let me touch her like this? Could I make her moan my name this way?”_

He couples his appeal with a kiss under her jaw and she nearly says, _yes_. He repeats his request, this time with his fingers dipping into the spaces between her buttons and stroking what little skin he can reach. The tip of a long finger brushes the very tip of her nipple and Macy’s hand flexes over Harry’s wrist as she struggles to remember what she is supposed to be doing.

_“Do you know how often I’ve dreamt of undressing her? Of stripping her bare and running my hands all over her? I want to find all the places that make her shiver. God, how I’d love to see you arch under my touch, my mouth. If she’d permit me I’d do everything in my power to drive her mad with pleasure.”_

“Harry…”

She really has to stop this. _Now_. She shifts onto her back, ready to confront him when his forehead presses against her temple. Macy feels more than hears the puff of his self-satisfied laugh in her hair as his hand returns to close over her breast. 

_“Tit for tat, my love,”_ he says and she can hear the unmistakable smirk in his voice. Even if he’s only dreaming, the desire to smack him is strong. But then, as if sensing her thoughts, Harry curls even tighter around her and continues, _“She does the same to me every day. Lord, how she fills my thoughts. And were it not for this accursed thing I would be hard for her every bloody hour of every bloody day…”_

He moves his hand across her chest to her other breast and strums at her hard nipple with his thumb. He falls still for a moment and the room is silent but for the sound of Harry’s heavy breaths coursing over neck.

Macy tilts her head back and pulls in a steadying breath, readying herself to rouse her dreaming whitelighter. Her poor, lonely Harry. She wonders about the lover whose touch he misses and craves so much his need for it spills out of him as he sleeps?

Another moment passes and Macy wonders if maybe his dreaming is over for now. But just as she thinks to move, Harry begins to tug at her. He molds himself to her side, arm and leg winding over and around her like the twining plant whose spirit has been fused with the device holding Harry captive. And all the while the Whitelighter continues to brush his lips against her and mumble imploringly into her skin.

“Harry, you have to wake up,” she urges him gently, rubbing a hand up and down his arm. His lips brush at the corner of hers and it’s only a matter of time before she gives in and lets him kiss her. “Baby...”

 _“_ ** _No_** _. Not yet,”_ his words are mulish, bordering on terse and his grip on her tightens like a child unwilling to give up a toy. Macy finds herself blinking in surprise at the sudden roughness in his touch. His forehead drops and he shakes his head before pressing stubbornly against the bony point of her shoulder.

Macy reaches a hand up to stroke at his bent head and wraps the other lightly around his wrist. Almost instantly his entire bearing softens. He changes tack, trying instead to entice and entreat with feather-light kisses and quiet begging.

 _“I… I’m sorry, love. Please,_ **_please_ ** _not yet. Let me stay with her for a bit longer yet? Just a bit?_ **_Please_** _...”_

The hair-roughened thigh he’s laid over hers shifts as Harry presses himself closer, trying to forestall his dream lover’s departure. As he does so the cage drags against her leg, alternately stuttering and sliding along over the thin trail of moisture dripping from the tip.

Macy reaches down, fingertips feeling for the device. Finding it, she lays her fingers against the warm plastic, searching for any sign of distress. She closes her hand around it as best she can and wills the enchanted thing to be kind to her Harry. He’s had such a rough time these past few weeks and here she is, about to wake him from what seems to be such a good dream. The least Macy can do is see to it he doesn’t suffer any pain when he leaves his dream world. 

She moves her hand in slow, steady strokes that she knows the cage finds soothing. But when she shifts her grip to cup the tip a low moan vibrates against the side of her head and her palm is immediately flooded with the precursor to an orgasm the device will ultimately deny her poor, frustrated whitelighter. 

She gently works her hand under the cage and between their thighs. Macy tries to move the ring encircling him but finds it refusing to budge. She closes a gentle hand around him and chokes back a sob what she feels. The normally soft and delicate skin of Harry’s scrotum is drawn so very, very tight and he feels huge and swollen. _Oh baby, you feel too damn full_ , she thinks miserably. There’s no way any of this can possibly be comfortable for him. _We’re going to find a way to help you, I promise._

Drawing her hand back, Macy sweeps one, last caress over the bit of him straining and bulging through the ventilation slits. Sweeps the slick yet sticky fluid dribbling from his tip over the reddened skin and makes a shushing noise when he pushes his face against her throat and whimpers. As she pulls her finger away a thick string follows. There’s just always _so much._

 _“B-because-,”_ Harry pants out as he rocks against the side of her hip, _“Because, heaven help me, I cannot stop thinking about her.”_ His groan is loud against her ear and his hips push the cage uselessly against the top of her thigh _. “Mmm, I think about her all day. How warm it must be inside her, how soft and silky. How good it would be to feel to have her beautiful hands wrapped around, pumping me as I get hard. Christ, what I would give to see myself swelling in her hands. And I what I wouldn’t do to have her glisten for me. Use my fingers or my mouth to get you ready. Lick at you until you’re so wet for me that I slide right in. Can you imagine that, my darling? How it would feel if I could push myself into you, fill you right up with my hard cock right fucking now?"_

Fuck, yes, she can imagine it. She succeeds in keeping the words locked behind her teeth but can’t quite manage to rein in her body’s other responses.

Macy can feel the delicious heat of Harry’s thigh seeping into her skin as her hips and legs shift under him. But for all his heat and the way his weight pins her to the bed, no part of him is close enough for her to press her aching core against. The image he’s painted for her swirls through her head and she shifts again, making a frustrated sound when she once again fails to find any kind of relief.

He’s always just out of reach. Even here, naked and sprawled half over her in her own, damn bed. Macy’s jaw clenches but another whimper still escapes from behind her closed lips. He’s always just too goddamn far away.

 _“Darling, what’s the matter?”_ he asks, nibbling at her ear again. Unable to put her jumbled thoughts into words, she simply moans his name and then it’s his turn to stroke a comforting hand down her body.

Macy’s instinctively shifts and twists at the rumble of Harry’s voice as he begs her to let him help. Her hips cant downwards as if she could somehow find him there, ready to press into her body. 

_God, this is insane. (He feels… God, he feels so good.) Shouldn’t be indulging him, not in this. This is just too much. This has gone too far._

Her thoughts war inside her head but if she’s being truthful, this isn’t even the first time she’s felt his hands on her before. It’s only natural that his thwarted desires should bleed into his dreams just as his anxieties have fed into and manifested as night terrors. But his hands have never roamed quite this much before and he’s never, ever this goddamn _vocal_ before. 

Logically, she’s aware that he’s been suffering from some level of sexual frustration but, god, she never realized it was this bad. And somehow in the past few weeks, his desperation has become hers as well.

Dammit, Macy swears at herself. She’d thought she’d been doing so well, getting a handle on her reactions to him. Yet here she is wishing he was truly talking about her or _to_ her. But on the universe’s list of highly improbable things is Macy being the woman Harry loved and wanted so much he dreamt the most vivid of dreams of her.

Still, with his hands running all over her and his hushed words tickling her ear, she can almost imagine it. She can just picture being called this man’s darling and love. Can imagine herself being someone other than the person he’d had some weird and short-lived crush on that soured for reasons Macy still couldn’t fathom.

But right now his hands are so gentle and his words are practically intoxicating. Couldn’t she let herself pretend? Just for a minute?

_“Sweetheart? Where’ve you gone, my love?”_

_No dammit, not ‘your love’,_ Macy wants to shout. _Not the one you’re dreaming of. Just your friend. Always, always just a friend…_

That’s what he wants out of her. That’s what he’s said over and over again, _a friend_.

_“Mmm… Come back to me, darling.”_

Whoever it is he’s dreaming of, whoever these kisses and caresses are meant for, _it isn’t her._

Macy blinks back her tears as she registers Harry’s words. He noses at the shell of her ear and lays a gentle kiss against her cheek.

 _“Please, M- Please, my love, come back to me?_ **_Stay with me_** _.”_

She feels his fingers tracing circles around the tip of her breast before rolling the now furled nipple between his fingers. With every firm pinch, Macy’s entire body twitches and she’s unable to stop the little, breathy cries of pleasure his touch elicits.

_“There you are, my darling. There’s my love.”_

Macy’s eyes slide shut in surrender and she lifts her hips as Harry smooths his hand down between her breasts, gliding over her belly to cup her between her legs. At the press of his hand against her, Macy’s eyes roll back and a long moan leaves her slack mouth. Harry’s fingers rock against her, separating her folds through the drenched fabric of her panties.

 _"Your knickers are soaked, my love,”_ he whispers as if in awe. _“Was that you or me? Christ, love, it could’ve been me. My cock has been leaking for want of you for bloody weeks.”_

Macy shudders at his words and she reaches back down to hold him. He lifts his knee to accommodate her hand. Her poor Harry, she thinks as she rolls his swollen and tight sack in her palm.

 _“Yes, darling, like that. Just hold me in your hand like that. Fuck, how I_ **_ache_** _. Haven’t come for so long. Feels like my balls are going to burst. Good god, what I wouldn’t give to be inside you right now, coming inside this sweet cunt.”_

His gravelly voice is sounding more and more strained as he’s all but started to babble. His groaned words vibrate over her skin and into her bones and feels like he might as well be dragging his fingers through her swollen and drenched folds.

Macy’s head twists on her pillow and Harry's name erupts from her mouth as long, thin wail as she registers that, oh god, that is _exactly_ what his fingers are doing.

_How–?_

_When–?_

_Oh god, fuuuuuck…_

H-how the hell had she not n-noti– _fuck, yes,_ **_there._ ** _Baby, right– rightthererightthere…_

…noticed him pushing aside the crotch of panties and slipping those damn, clever fingers of his in?! The fingers flicker over opening and Macy feels her airway close on a squeak. She yanks her hand out from between their tangled legs, grabbing at the back of Harry’s thigh. 

Her nails dig into the soft skin just below the curve of his ass, her entire body arching towards Harry’s touch. Harry grunts and his entire body bucks against her side. His fingers stutter as he strokes against her wet center. He lays his tongue flat against her neck and moans before sucking hard at the skin.

“Harry. _Harry…”_ she calls to him plaintively, her breath leaving her in ragged gasps. He offers her no mercy and instead intensifies his dual assaults on her neck and sex. Macy can feel her whole body shaking as he plucks at her hooded bundle of nerves.

 _“I’m here, darling,”_ he finally answers, lifting his mouth from her throat to scrape his rough cheek against her jaw. _“Is it too much, my love?”_ he asks, sounding both tender and a little winded.

Harry slips his hand out from the side of her underwear and for a brief moment some small semblance of sanity returns to Macy as she tries to catch her breath. It doesn’t last long as Harry slides his fingers, slick with her moisture, back down over her belly. He pushes past the low slung garter of her underwear before Macy manages to wrap a hand around his wrist, stopping him just shy of her hooded nub, still desperately sensitive from his last round of caresses, still aching for more of his attentions. He offers no resistance and seems to content himself with stroking his fingertips through her curls and humming appreciatively before going altogether still.

Seconds tick by and Harry remains motionless. A soft, snore-like breath brushes against her jaw and Macy sinks her teeth into her lip, trying to stop the wild sob she can feel rising at the back of her throat. Her entire body is still abuzz but she tells herself it’s for the best. He’s calm. He’s resting. _It’s for the best._

Slowly, Macy relaxes her grip on Harry’s leg before letting go altogether. She winces and apologizes silently when she feels the crescent-shaped grooves indentations her nails have left. Her hand free, Macy reaches up to pull closed her somehow, completely unbuttoned pajama top.

For a brief minute, she considers leaving him as he is with his lax hand down the front of her panties. But as she takes a deep breath she realizes that even the smallest movements from either of them sends Harry’s fingers brushing dangerously close to her throbbing clitoris. Macy’s hold on Harry tightens, pressing inside his wrist against her belly with the intention of immobilizing him.

It would be too easy, too tempting. The smallest shimmy of her hips and Harry’s long fingers would slide into her cleft. She can just imagine them curling and finding their way inside her, filling her just the way Harry had described…

Biting her lip, Macy adjusts her grip and begins to ease Harry’s hand upward. She barely makes more than a single inch of progress when a humid puff of air hits her ear and her hand is met with sudden resistance.

_“Harry…”_

His name leaves her lips on a half-sob and she turns her face towards him, her resolve fading with every millisecond that passes.

 _“Not. Yet,”_ he growls. Harry slides his forehead against hers, rubbing his nose against hers while whispering in a gentler more beseeching tone, _“Please, darling, not yet. Let me give you this.”_

Her gaze flicks up but even in the near pitch-black of the room she can see the pale lids of his eyes are still closed. Macy’s mouth falls open and she lets out a soft, keening cry as Harry’s palm skates back down over her mound and his fingers part the soft, wet lips of her sex.

The hand meant to be pulling him free of her panties is now guiding him, fingers pressing over his, showing him how best to touch her and where. Under her wordless but far from silent tutelage Harry strokes and parts her folds, all the while breathing the sweetest and filthiest compliments against her cheek.

 _“So_ **_soft_** _, my love. Mmm, soft and slippery like the ripest mango. You feel so pretty and wet against my hand,”_ he sighs as he moves his hand to cover the entirety of her sex. Macy arches and shoves herself downward when he grinds the heel of his palm ever so lightly against her mound _“Lord, the mess you would make of my face, darling. If I could, I’d spend the rest of our days feasting at your sweet, ripe cunt.”_

After just a minute or so of Harry’s renewed attention, Macy feels a trembling set up in her legs. The way her body practically thrums under his bold touches has her shaking and moaning out his name. Macy turns her face up to the ceiling, back arching as his mouth pulls at her skin over her collarbone in concert with his strokes against her center.

Somehow, without her noticing Harry’s head has bent over her chest and she feels her top fall back open as he noses against her breast. Macy gives a small yelp as his tongue flicks against her nipple, followed by a drawn out _fu-u-u-u-ck_ when his lips close around the furled tip for a long, firm pull. 

He does it again. And again. And again. Each time paired with a slow drag of his fingers over but never into her entrance. And each time it wrings a small, sharp cry from her lips.

“Mmm, s-so close. Harry, _so close…”_

 _“Oh, darling, I know,”_ is the smug reply the bastard gives her, slowly lifting off of her breast and simultaneously stilling the fingers wedged inside her panties. _“You’re practically shaking in my hand. Is that what you want, my love? For me to play with this sweet pussy until you’ve come all over my hand?_ ”

Before she can answer, Harry makes his way back upwards with a line of kisses until he’s nuzzling at her cheek, his lips stretching into what feels like a broad smile. She can barely make out his quiet chuckle just before he delivers a quick nip to her jaw. 

“Harry? Wha- What are you doing?? _No…_ Harry, please, I need…”

Without warning the bastard trades his bold and maddening strokes for delicate caresses. Too delicate. His fingers whisper over her center again and again, the leg still twined around hers pinning her down and making it impossible to chase after his touch. 

_“Yes, darling,”_ he breathes hotly into her ear as she whines out his name. “ _Tell me what you need. Tell me what I need to do to make this pretty cunt of your quiver for me. Tell me…”_ He urges her before once again sucking in her earlobe.

Macy tries to speak but the words… _oh fuck, his mouth, so good… what does she need? He’s asking her what she needs…_ A fingertip traces delicately around her opening and Macy can hear her making the most embarrassingly, plaintive sounds. _What– What the hell_ **_does_ ** _she need??_

 _“More,”_ Macy finally sobs. “Oh god, Harry, I need _more.”_

In a fit of madness Macy shoves her hand to join his inside her underwear. She covers his hand with her own, lining her fingers up with his before guiding them– pressing them– pushing Harry’s fingers deep into her body.

Macy can barely hear Harry swearing over the roaring of blood in her ears. She gasps as he suddenly takes the initiative to shove his digits even more deeply inside of her. She feels the edges of her opening stretching in the most delicious way around the knobby sides of Harry’s knuckles as she helps him work his fingers into her again and again. 

She moves her hips, riding his fingers as best she can with the leg thrown over hers. Her movements only grow more frenzied when Harry starts babbling about her heat and slickness and the smooth, grasping softness of her channel. He tells her on a sob how he wants desperately he wants to fuck her. Begs her to let him put his cock where his fingers are. It’s nonsense and insanity. Impossible, impossible things. He rubs his thumb over her clit, making promises and trying to bargain. She bucks uncontrollably and whines unabashedly. Macy's hands scrabble over Harry's, trying to stuff his fingers deeper, urging him to stroke and caress every inch of her channel.

 _“You’re even more incredible than I imagined,”_ moans as he continues to fuck her with his fingers. _“Good god, Macy, how you would feel around my cock. So warm, no, no-_ **_hot_** _. I swear to Christ, you must be scorching my fingers. And you’re so wet, darling. I want– Lord, I just want… Fuck. Please, love, let me have a taste. Just one… I need to have this sweet cunt against my mouth. I need to feel you coming against my tongue. Please, Ma– my darling, I would do anything for you. Let me do this…”_

He sounds so wild, so fiendishly desperate. So agitated, Macy fears for his safety. Fuck, she has to stop him. Stop him before he… Before _it_ hurts him… But she’s so close. She can’t seem to stop moving. He wants to taste her. He wants his mouth on her, his tongue. She can feel herself clenching around his fingers at just the thought of those lips of his, kissing her, nibbling, his tongue flicking at her before he finally–

Harry’s head dips and in a panic Macy shoves a hand into Harry’s hair and tangles her fingers into the thick, dark strands. It stops him short and instead he latches his mouth to the nearest part of her he can reach.

A small squeak leaves her as Harry’s strong and nimble tongue curls around a tightened nipple. Mouth filled with her flesh, Harry moans. The vibrations in combination with a sudden curling of the fingers inside of her send Macy’s back bowing off the bed. With her free hand, Macy grabs at the hand inside her underwear and pulls it roughly to her. The movement grinds the heel of Harry’s palm against Macy’s clitoris and drives Harry’s fingers that much deeper until his fingertips brush against one sweet and perfect spot. With a choked off scream, the world shudders -things tumble and glass cracks- and within her an entire galaxy of stars explodes.

-

The hand in Harry’s hair unclenches and falls leadenly against her torso as the crashing waves of pleasure-pain recede and are replaced by a warm sort of exhaustion that laps at the edges of her consciousness. Macy’s eyes stay closed as she tries to calm her breathing, ragged as it is with the guilt that’s trying to swamp her.

He pulls away from her breast and leans over to place a single kiss over her thundering heart before moving back to push his face into the crook of her neck.

 _“Exquisite,"_ Harry purrs against her neck. He drags his fingers out of her depths and with them pulls a low, mournful moan from Macy’s mouth. She licks her suddenly parched lips and feels the heat of his face as he hovers over her. 

In the afterglow of her orgasm, Macy wants nothing more than to drag his lips to hers and drink him in with kiss after kiss. She wants to feel his tongue tangling with her and swallow down his moans and smug laughter as she basks in the hazy pleasure of his continued attentions. Or rather the attentions he’s paying the woman in his dreams.

Harry’s breath drifts over her cheek and he murmurs something against her jaw. A name perhaps? Made unintelligible by his dragging his teeth against her skin. A hollow ache sets up in her chest. Macy turns her head away just as he flicks his tongue against the corner of her lips. Instead of complaining, Harry contents himself with bussing his lips against her jaw and pulling at the skin behind her ear.

_“Mmm, my sweet, that *mmm* was so *mmm* perfectly *mmm* lovely. The way you welcomed me into you? And the way you *mmm* trembled around my fingers? Utterly sublime…”_

Harry’s fingers return to their gentle, feather-light strokes, stirring up softer and softer aftershocks. When even that becomes too much for her sensitive folds, Macy sucks a breath through her teeth and drops her hand to cover Harry’s. She presses lightly over the damp and cooling fabric of her panties and his fingers still. But instead of pulling his hand from her underwear, Harry reaches in deep and shifts his grip to cup the whole of her sex in his palm. 

_“Alright, my love, you rest. And I’ll maybe hold onto this delightful cunt of yours just a spell, hmm?”_

Macy resists the dual urges to laugh and scream while she reaches down to extricate his hand. Turning onto her side, she doesn’t bother to suppress the shudder that runs through her as Harry’s hand slips under her loosened top and smooths its way up her damp spine. She lays a hand on his cheek and rubs her thumb over the prickly stubble while calling his name. 

They have to talk about this. They– _She_ can’t have done this with him just _not_ talk about it. Her lungs burn as she whispers his name a second time, simultaneously dreading and hoping he opens his eyes. But stubbornly his eyes remain closed, even as he wriggles closer to trace the line of her nose with his own. 

“Harry, you have to wake up,” Macy begs, pressing her forehead against his. “Baby, please, you have to wake up and talk to me. Please? _Wake up.”_

He cups her face in turn, his still-wet fingers smoothing her own moisture over her cheekbone and this time he doesn’t let her escape. His hand anchors her in place and he drifts inexorably towards her until his soft lips connect with hers in a tender kiss.

 _“No… No, I can’t,”_ he insists, lips moving over hers. He slings an arm around her waist and draws her close until his chest slides against her with every breath he takes. Macy’s own arm wraps around his shoulders almost of its own accord and she tucks her head into his shoulder. Harry mumbles as he arranges her against him as if it’s any other, normal night. As if they’re just going to bed after a slow day at the command center. As if she isn’t fucking drenched in sweat and still shivering from being brought off by his goddamn fingers in the most spectacular way. He tugs at her until their legs are once again tangled and the entire, furnace-like line of his body is pressed against her. Seemingly satisfied with their arrangement, Harry’s breathing slows, as do his words.

_“…’s just a dream. Can’t ever love me anywhere else. Please, just let me have my dream...Macy… Jus’ a little while…”_

“Godammit, Harry…”

 _“–mmm… Macy… Macy… my dream…”_ is his only response as his breathing slows and grows heavy in the way that it does when he drifts off to sleep.

-∵-

When Harry awakens several hours later, he’s sprawled, face down across the center of the bed. Before doing anything else, even acknowledging the discomforts brought on by his current position, Harry stretches out a hand and reaches for– 

_…odd_

Groggily, Harry’s hand gropes and fumbles over the sheets hoping to brush against the sleep-warmed skin of a certain witch but she is apparently nowhere to be found.

_Where…?_

Harry raises his head from the bed to look up at the windows. It seems rather early for Macy to have gone for her run but when he reaches out for her along the connection that binds them as whitelighter and witch, Harry can sense her on the move. She’s not more than three or four miles away and as far as he can ascertain without violating her privacy not suffering from any pains or fears.

Harry rolls onto his back both satisfied with his assessment of Macy’s safety and perhaps just a touch disappointed by her absence. She always wakes him before she leaves. He feels a rueful smile stretch his lips and shakes his head. He supposes he might just be a bit too used to waking to her hand on his cheek and her soft voice calling him from sleep. Although, given the hour, he supposes he should thank her for leaving him to sleep a bit longer. After all, that last dream he had…

Harry blows out a long breath and scrubs at his face. ‘Intensely erotic’ doesn’t hardly begin to describe it. And the way it all still lingers in his head, he’d swear he could actually still smell her intoxicating scent on his fingers. Not that he knows what exactly that scent would be, mind you. And he is most certainly not going to give into a sudden and particularly irrational urge to stick his fingers into his mouth on the off chance his dreams had manifested into reality sometime during the night. Harry takes in a series of calming breaths and licks his lips, trying not to imagine what the soft skin of her throat might feel like against his lips much less taste like. 

Internal admonitions aside, it’s the pinch of the cage against the swelling of his imprisoned member that snaps Harry’s mind into the present. That and the sound of the front door clicking shut one floor below. 

With a surge of energy he hasn’t felt in weeks and an odd sense of accomplishment despite only having just awoken, Harry makes for the shower, hardly pausing as he stumbles over several books scattered around his bedside table. A review of the refrigerator’s contents and the various breakfast dishes he could concoct with them scroll through his mind as he stands under the warm spray and picks up bottles of body wash and shampoo from the shower floor.

Perhaps an omelet with the last of the Asiago cheese and a bit of the fresh herbs from the balcony? He thinks he might know a certain witch who would enjoy just such a dish after an invigorating morning run.

Several minutes later with a towel wrapped about his waist and humming an old Sam Cooke tune, Harry steps out of the bathroom to find Macy having returned and in the midst of removing her jumper. As the jumper is pulled above Macy's shoulders, lifting her hair clear of her neck something not unlike a giant's fist both slams into his gut and wraps around his heart and squeezes. Macy’s throat–

 _No... It didn’t– I couldn’t have._ _It was just a_ ** _dream_** _._

The entire side of Macy’s neck is positively _littered_ in love bites.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking a quick(ish) break to do Nano and a few other writing challenges. Next update might not be for a little while. So until then, thanks for reading!!
> 
> A bazillion, trillion thanks to **Majestrix** for helping and reading the, like, seventeen different drafts of this damn chapter and listening to me moan about this fic in general the better part of a whole damn year!! Life. Saver. OMG. 💙💜💛🧡💚


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